Carolina couple, daughter indicted for enslavement of a disabled person
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 10 hours ago
- 2 min read
By THE STAR STAFF
A federal grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico returned an indictment charging Luz María Peña López, 55, and her daughter, Tatiana Correa Peña, 36, of Carolina, with forced labor and conspiracy to commit forced labor, announced Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and United States Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico W. Stephen Muldrow.
Peña López was also charged with document servitude. Peña López’s husband, Enrique Gutiérrez Rivera, 54, a municipal police officer in Carolina, was charged in relation to his knowledge of the event, failure to report, and concealment of his co-defendants’ misuse of the victim’s Social Security benefits. The three defendants were placed under arrest on Tuesday.
According to the indictment, defendants Peña López and Correa Peña used physical beatings, physical restraint, threats of violence, document servitude, isolation, denial of basic hygiene and medical care, and the provision of drugs and/or unprescribed medication to force the victim -- an intellectually disabled adult woman -- to panhandle for money, engage in criminal and fraudulent activities for their financial benefit, and perform domestic labor in their shared residence. Peña López and Correa Peña also converted the victim’s monthly Social Security disability benefits for their own personal use.
“The Justice Department condemns the appalling abuse and forced labor inflicted on this disabled victim, as alleged in this indictment, and we are committed to ensuring the perpetrators face the full consequences of the law,” Dhillon said.
The indictment specifically notes that as part of their coercive scheme to compel the victim’s labor, defendants Peña López and Correa Peña threatened the victim with violence and death; physically beat the victim, sometimes using objects such as belts, broomsticks, and cables; restricted the victim’s ability to leave the residence by forcing her to sleep in a space formerly used to house goats and roosters, at times locking her inside overnight; and used the victim’s Social Security disability benefits for their own personal use, denying those funds to the victim for even basic hygiene items such as clothes, toothbrushes, deodorant, and sanitary pads.
The maximum penalty for the offense of forced labor is 20 years in federal prison. The maximum penalty for misprision of a felony is three years.
The case is being investigated by the FBI. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Daynelle Alverez and Trial Attorney Jessica Arco of the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit.