MINNEAPOLIS — At the Hennepin County Courthouse, judges see crimes of all kinds.
But they've never heard a case like this.
"The first labor trafficker in Hennepin County," said Madeline Lohman of Advocates of Human Rights.
For Lohman, however, the case against Ricardo Batres isn't unusual.
It's the kind of abuse her organization hears about daily in the construction industry, but rarely do cases make it this far.
"Figuring out how to build a case is difficult and victims are very afraid. Traffickers do a lot of work to make victims unwilling to come forward," said Lohman.
Four former employees say Batres used their status as undocumented immigrants against them.
Forcing them to work long hours in unsafe conditions and denying them health care so Batres could avoid paying workers compensation insurance.
Employees say Batres used death threats and threats of deportation to keep them quiet.
Labor unions stepped in and reported Batres - when an employee was injured so badly on the job - that he had to go to the hospital.
"These types of atrocities happen everywhere in the industry of construction," said Samantha Serrano Vargas, a local construction worker.
Through an interpreter, she explained why this case is so important.
"Everything we heard up there is real in what I've seen," Vargas said. "The threats of killing people, the different threats of retaliation against workers. This is stuff that is happening out there."
While victims and advocates feel the sentence was too lenient - Batres received 270 days in jail and five years probation in the case - they still see his conviction as a victory, sending a message to traffickers that courts are cracking down.
"We know that we're just seeing the tip of the ice berg with these cases," said Lohman.
The sentence today was part of a plea deal Batres agreed to back in November.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said in a statement:
Under Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines, labor trafficking is an unranked offense. There are no designations for what the sentence could be.
When our office took this case, our attorneys had to establish what they thought would be an appropriate sentence for labor trafficking based on their professional expertise. The Ricardo Batres case is the first labor trafficking case to be charged, tried and convicted in Minnesota. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office has set a precedent for how future labor trafficking cases in Minnesota can be sentenced.
Batres is scheduled to report to jail Thursday morning.