Posted on: Sunday, September 2, 2001
New charges filed in Samoa beatings
Associated Press
The owner of an American Samoa garment factory assured a manager he would take responsibility for any death resulting from beatings of Vietnamese workers who did not follow directions, according to new federal charges filed against Kil Soo Lee.
The result was a melee at Lee's Daewoosa Samoa Ltd. factory in which a worker from Vietnam lost her eye and another suffered permanent hearing loss, an O'ahu grand jury indictment alleged.
The indictment named 22 new counts against Lee, a South Korean national who already faced charges of involuntary servitude and forced labor, and two of his assistants.
It came hours before two other employees of the now-closed factory pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiring to hold guest workers from Vietnam in involuntary servitude in the U.S. territory 2,300 miles south of Hawai'i.
Elekana Nu'uuli Ioane admitted that, at Lee's direction, he told American Samoa laborers to beat Vietnamese workers who were not helping to meet a critical delivery deadline. Sialava'a Fagaima admitted attacking Vietnamese workers in response to Ioane's and Lee's directions, and putting out a worker's eye with a pipe.
The indictment supersedes one returned in April against Lee, 51, who was arrested by FBI agents in March in American Samoa and brought to Hawai'i.
It accuses Virginia Solia'i and Robert Ati Malala of conspiring with Lee to hold up to 250 workers from Vietnam and China in involuntary servitude through threats, violence and confiscation of their passports and return airline tickets.
The factory made clothes for J.C. Penney Co. and other retailers before the U.S. Labor Department reported abuses against the workers in December.
Lee also is charged with extortion for allegedly forcing a worker to sign over a $2,274 back-wage check she had been given as a result of regulatory action; with money laundering for depositing the check; and with attempting to bribe a Bank of Hawai'i official to influence his application for a $500,000 loan to Daewoosa.
Lee's public defender, Alexander Silvert, said the additional charges were expected, because "it's common practice for prosecutors to add additional charges when they believe the original charges are weak."
Solia'i surrendered to authorities and pleaded innocent to the charges in Honolulu yesterday. An arrest warrant was issued for Malala.
If convicted on all counts, Lee faces up to 390 years in prison, Malala faces up to 80 years, and Solia'i faces up to 210 years.
Solia'i is being held pending a Tuesday bail hearing. Lee's trial, now set for Sept. 25, is expected to be delayed until next year.
