He forced a 12-year-old into near-slavery on Florida farms. That got him prison time.
The legal terms for the crimes Walfre Camposeco-Montejo committed with a 12-year-old boy from Guatemala through Texas and on into Palm Beach County are “providing and obtaining forced labor,” “alien smuggling,” and “unlawfully transporting aliens.”
The common terms: He turned a boy into little better than a field slave after conning his sick mother, then bled the mother’s family for ransom.
Camposeco-Montejo, a 35-year-old Guatemalan national, was sentenced to eight years Friday in federal prison along with $34,000 in restitution.
Getting the boy from Guatemala to Florida
According to Camposeco-Montejo’s admission of facts, the saga started in Guatemala, during the late summer/early fall of 2016. That’s when he told the then-12-year-old’s ill mother that he could get into the United States more easily if he was bringing along a child. In exchange, the boy (referred to as “Minor Victim 1” or “MV1”) could go to school there.
“Nothing was mentioned during the discussions related to MV1 and defendant traveling to the United States about repayment to the defendant for this opportunity of travel, residence and education,” Camposeco-Montejo’s admission states.
He and MV1 sneaked through Mexico to the U.S. border, where “coyotes” paid by Camposeco-Montejo’s family guided them over the border. Getting arrested in El Paso, Texas, on Nov. 6, 2016, didn’t halt their progress. Under direction from Camposeco-Montejo, MV1 went along with the story that they had left Guatemala on Oct. 24 instead of weeks earlier.
When Customs officials saw Camposeco-Montejo’s real birth certificate and the fake one he made for MV1 that listed Camposeco-Montejo as MV1’s father, they were booked, given alien numbers and released on Nov. 9. Their point of contact in the United States: Maria Juliana Composeco-Montejo (Juliana Montejo), Walfre’s sister in Lake Worth Beach.
She bought them bus tickets to West Palm Beach.
Underage Florida Farm Worker
Once in West Palm Beach, Walfre Camposeco-Montejo pulled the reveal on MV1 — he’d have to pay back the $2,500 it cost to bring him to the United States. How would a 12-year-old boy make that kind of money?
At a pepper farm in Boynton Beach. Juliana Montejo had worked there. She got MV1 a fake ID that put his age at 21. MV1 toiled 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days a week, the documents say.
MV1 worked like an adult and found himself financially stretched like many adults. Camposeco-Montejo would take at least half of each check after MV1 cashed it at a check-cashing store for the “debt.” Then, he made the child pay $175 each month for rent, water and utilities, according to court documents.
MV1 was moved to a different Palm Beach County farm, where he made $4,000 over two months, but got to keep only $300, then a third job weeding plants. Also, Camposeco-Montejo’s brother-in-law, Ephraim Bamaca, made him work as a janitor in a movie theater. Pay? None. Payback for letting him stay with them was what Bamaca and Montejo told MV1.
“MV1 would sleep only about three hours and then was required to go to work at one of the above described farms,” Camposeco-Montejo’s admission of facts says.
MV1 saved enough for a cellphone that allowed him to call home. But Camposeco-Montejo told MV1’s mother they’d have to pay $2,000 if they wanted the boy back in Guatemala.
“Despite being told the original debt was $2,500, the defendant continued to take MV1’s money even after the entire debt was paid,” the admission says. “For example, one week, the defendant confirmed that MV1’s debt was down to $500. The following week, however, he increased the balance due to $1,000.”
MV1 estimated he paid Camposeco-Montejo over $4,000.
The Escape
With Camposeco-Montejo, his sister and Bamaca watching a soccer game on June 5, 2017, MV1 hid clothes and a small blanket in a bag outside the home. He slipped out and met a pepper farm co-worker at a coin laundry. They drove to North Carolina. When they got to a farm that housed its workers, the woman called U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour investigators.
Camposeco-Montejo was arrested on Aug. 2, 2019.
This story was originally published January 14, 2020 at 6:01 AM.
