Federal prosecutors have charged four people with using forced labor for holding a disabled woman and her daughter against their will over a two-year period.
Defendant Jordie Callahan faces one additional charge of tampering with a witness.
The defendants stand accused of using threats of violence and physical abuse to force the disabled mother to perform manual labor.
"These defendants violated the victim’s most basic civil right, freedom, by exploiting her most basic instinct, the protection of her child,” Stephen D. Anthony, the SAC of Cleveland FBI office, told local ABC affiliate NewsNet5.
The defendants in this case claim that the disabled woman was the abuser. They showed police a cell phone video of the woman hitting her child. The mother claims that Callahan and Hunt forced her to hit her child.
The forced labor allegedly began in May 2011. The defendants are also accused of taking the woman’s public assistance funds and pain medications for their own personal use.
“We are yet again reminded that modern-day slavery exists all around us,” Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, said in a press release.
The forced labor came to an end in late 2012. Police arrested the disabled mother for shoplifting a candy bar. She then told police about what was happening to her and her daughter.
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