In the midst of trial, a federal judge in Santa Ana dismissed the case against a man accused of forcing illegal immigrants into forced labor in Simi Valley, a defense attorney said Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Monica Ramirez Almadani granted a motion Tuesday for acquittal for 46-year-old Jairo John Gastelo, who was charged last year along with his wife, 52-year-old Carolina Rojas, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release.
Prosecutors said Rojas helped people from Latin American countries make their way into the country illegally from November 2021 through March 2024 to work for her in Simi Valley as nannies for a child with special needs and do other household chores with the labor counting for their rent.
The victims also worked at a nearby McDonald’s restaurant, where Rojas helped them gain employment, prosecutors said. She also took a portion of their wages to defray the costs of her obtaining phony Social Security cards and other documents they needed to work.
Gastelo went on trial on charges of conspiracy to commit forced labor and forced labor, but just as the attorneys on the case were set to make closing arguments, Almadani granted a motion for acquittal Tuesday.
Gastelo and Rojas were separated off and on during the period Rojas was smuggling people into the country, Gastelo’s attorney, Peter Sebastian said.
“My client hadn’t been any part of that,” Sebastian said.
“It was sort of a government overreach and I knew that from the get-go, and the tough part was a jury hearing evidence of forced labor,” Sebastian said.
But none of the people smuggled into the country were threatened or forced to stay with Rojas, Sebastian said.
“If there were any threats to these people, it was, `If you don’t want to help, you have to; go and you can’t live in my house,”’ the attorney said.
Rojas spent “thousands of dollars getting them up here from South America” with one victim taking two months to arrive in the U.S. “hacking through jungles and Mexican bureaucracy,” Sebastian said. “They had harrowing tales, but not in Simi Valley.”
Gastelo was working as a roofer and even bought a house during the time, but then rented it out and came to live with Rojas in their on-again, off-again relationship, Sebastian said.
The couple was caring for Rojas’ nephew, who had cerebral palsy, Sebastian said.
A U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.