Fort Myers News-Press, Oct.18, 2000

Drama marks ‘modern-day slavery’ trial

By Peter Franceschina

Sitting on the witness stand in federal court, the 20-year-old Guatemalan woman wouldn’t look at the man accused of kidnapping her from her mountain village and taking her to the farm fields last fall to work in indentured servitude.

She wore traditional Guatemalan clothing, an embroidered purple-and-white blouse and a multicolored skirt. The broad planes of her face remained impassive as she kept her eyes fixed on the jury, though her hands continually twisted together in her lap.

She didn’t dare glance toward the man sitting at the defense table, until she was asked – after detailing her ordeal for three hours – to identify her captor.

“I don’t want to look at his face,” the woman told jurors through a translator. “He hurt me a lot.”

Finally, she turned in her seat and unflinchingly pointed straight at Jose Tecum.

Federal prosecutors opened their case against the 45-year-old Immokalee man Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers. Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan French told jurors they would learn about a culture and customs far different from those they know in this country.

“This case is about people with power and the powerless,” she said. “It’s a case about modern-day slavery in the United States.”

Tecum was one of the wealthiest men in the village of Patachaj, in central Guatemala, and had the largest home in the village, French said. Tecum struck fear in the woman’s family, until finally he just took her away, French said. He had a reputation for being a ‘coyote,’ someone who smuggles illegal aliens into the United States, she said.

“When he brought this young woman into the United States, she was already under his power,” she said. Some of the testimony focused on “brujeria,” which was translated for the jurors as “witchcraft.” The woman testified Tecum took her to a ritual to have a spell cast on her to make her love him.

In a very brief opening statement, defense attorney Roy Foxall told jurors the case is not what it seems.

“Our case is quite simple. Rather than a witch or coyote, my client is an illiterate tomato picker from Immokalee,” he said, adding Tecum is upset with the government for prosecuting him. “He feels he’s the victim here, the government is picking on him because he’s an illiterate tomato picker.”

His accuser has a simple motive, he said: “Why is she launching these accusations at Jose? It’s simply because it’s her ticket for staying in the United States.”

Prosecutors took jurors on a videotaped tour of Patachaj, filmed by an investigator based in Guatemala City who went to the remote village. No road leads all the way there. The woman and her family lived in three tiny, mud-brick buildings without electricity, running water, or a telephone. By comparison, Tecum’s white, ranch-style home looked like it would blend right into any Southwest Florida neighborhood.

The woman was the prosecution’s second witness. As soon as she took the stand, Tecum stood up and began yelling at the woman in their native dialect. “Maria, Maria,” he called out sharply, before going on.

Marshals scrambled to restrain him, and the jurors were taken out of the courtroom while Tecum continued yelling, and was upbraided by the judge, who told him he would be removed if he didn’t remain silent.

“I have witnesses. The mom and dad gave me the daughter,” Tecum protested through a translator.

Finally, Tecum agreed to keep his composure, and the trial continued with the woman’s testimony.

The woman told jurors Tecum wanted her to testify he wasn’t the one who brought her to Immokalee. “That is not true,” she said. “Jose Tecum brought me from Guatemala.”

Last summer, Tecum began paying visits to her home, asking her to marry him. She refused him, as did her father. Over a number of visits, Tecum became threatening.

“He came back and scared my father. I was in the house. He told my father if he did not turn me over to him he was going to kill me,” the woman said, adding Tecum also threatened to kill other family members.

One night Tecum brought liquor to the home and got her father drunk, escorting him to bed. Then Tecum raped her in the kitchen, a separate building, the woman said. Her brother, the final witness of the day, backed up her story.

The woman said Tecum eventually took her to his home, where he kept her for two months. Her infant daughter – only weeks old – died for lack of medical care. “When my baby got sick, I didn’t have money. He would not give me money to cure my baby,” she said.

Tecum eventually took her by bus to the Mexican border, where they walked for five nights in the desert to get into Arizona. Tecum didn’t give her food or water, and she had to drink irrigation water and got sick.

After two weeks in California, they took a bus to Fort Myers and got a ride to Immokalee, where Tecum’s wife and three children lived in an apartment. There, Tecum took her to the fields and kept her pay, saying she owed him about $1,000 for smuggling her into the country, the woman said.

She said he also forced her to have sex when his wife wasn’t around. Tecum’s wife called sheriff’s deputies in November, 1999 to report domestic violence. Deputies talked to the woman, which instigated the federal investigation and the arrest of Tecum and his wife.

Tecum’s wife struck a plea agreement and will testify against her husband. the trial is expected to last through the week.