Woman Smuggled Mexican Woman To US For Forced Labor

A Florida woman pleaded guilty to smuggling a Mexican woman into the U.S. for forced labor.

Esthela Clark, who is originally from Guadalajara, Mexico, but lives in Jacksonville, Florida, admitted to smuggling the victim into the U.S. against her will to be her pregnancy surrogate.

Clark told the victim she would pay her to be her surrogate. A criminal complaint said she was kept captive by Clark for nearly two years.

Investigators said Clark attempted to artificially inseminate the victim with her boyfriend’s semen, from his used condoms, with a syringe, according to WJAX.

When the attempts to conceive were unsuccessful, Clark forced her to have sex with strangers and keep the condoms so she could use a syringe to artificially inseminate her.

After none of the attempts were successful, Clark began beating the victim and abusing her in other ways. She fed her only beans from a can, causing her to lose 65 pounds, because she said the victim was “too fat” to get pregnant.

On other occasions, Clark forced the victim to sleep in bleach, hit her with a metal stick and once forced her to strip out of her clothing when she believed she had been stealing, according to the Daily Mail.

Clark allowed the woman to work, but kept all of her earnings and threatened her family, who were still in Mexico, if she attempted to escape.

A member of the victim’s church first suspected she was being abused and called police to investigate.

Clark pleaded guilty to forced labor. She is still awaiting sentencing, but faces up to 20 years in prison or deportation if prosecutors prove she entered the country illegally.

She was indicted for human trafficking, but the charge was dropped as part of a plea deal.

Clark met the victim in Guadalajara in November 2012 and propositioned her. She told the victim she wanted to have a baby but was unable. She offered her between $3,000 and $4,000 to carry her child and told her that the process would be overseen by doctors and that she could return to Mexico with the money when the process was complete.

Readers shared their thoughts on the Mad World News Facebook page.

“This was a horrible act!” one reader commented. “The woman who did this deserves to never get out…what happened to her boyfriend..he should get time too…I hope the girl victim is ok & able to get any help she needs..”

“How horrible how could anybody do that to any human being is just beyond me she needs to die in prison twenty years is way to damn light of a sentence this other woman has experience so much trauma,” another user wrote.

Sources: WJAX, Daily Mail / Featured Image: Klaus With K/Wikimedia Commons / Embedded Images: Daily Mail