Lawyers of Rancher Accused of Slavery Fight Assets Seizure

Attorneys for a Somis flower rancher charged with enslaving Mexican laborers told a federal judge Monday that they would be forced off the case if the government is allowed to seize about $5 million of the rancher’s property, as it has proposed.

“All of the defense lawyers you see sitting here today are going to be out of this case because we can’t get paid,” said Robert M. Talcott, one of 10 lawyers representing rancher Edwin M. Ives, his wife, Dolly, and seven former employees. “It’s an attempt simply to deny them legal counsel.”

In a bitter personal attack, attorneys for Ives also accused prosecutors of unethical conduct and told U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall that they plan to file motions for appointment of a special prosecutor to take over the case.

The statements concluded a lengthy hearing Monday where defendants were arraigned on charges of witness tampering, extortion and racketeering handed down by a federal grand jury last week. All pleaded not guilty. Two defendants remain at large.

Marshall rejected pleas by defense attorneys that she postpone any decision on the government request to seize Ives’ property until she returns from a seven-week leave Feb. 25. She ruled that a stand-in judge could decide the issue in her absence.

Ives and the other defendants are charged with conspiring to enslave laborers recruited from rural Mexican villages during the 1980s, forcing them to work for about $1 an hour and selling them food and sundries at inflated prices from a company store.

The grand jury, which indicted Ives on 15 counts in May, expanded the indictment to 46 counts Thursday and added three new defendants, including Dolly Ives, to the original eight.

Defense attorneys said Monday that the new indictments were a surprise and based on information known by prosecutors for months. The new charges represent a desperate attempt by the government to revive a failing case, they said.

A series of key motions, includings several that could have led to dismissal of some charges, were to be argued Monday but were canceled because of the new indictment, they said.

“We have been misled, sandbagged and deliberately lied to in this case,” said Janet Levine, lawyer for Rony Havive, Ives’ nephew and a onetime foreman on his ranch. Such conduct “brings dishonor to our profession,” she said.

An angry Talcott noted in court that prosecutor Carol L. Gillam was absent, and he snapped: “I wish she were here so she could respond.”

In an interview Monday afternoon, Gillam said Talcott’s theory that the new charges were filed to derail the defense and force Ives’ lawyers off the case were “all absurd.”

The government hopes to freeze Ives’ property so that “one day we will have a fund to compensate the victims in this case for millions,” in back wages they were never paid, Gillam said.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Alfredo Jarrin, who was in court, said that defense attorneys have known since September that the grand jury was still investigating what happened at Ives’ 50-acre ranch in the 1980s.

“We made it clear the investigation was continuing,” Jarrin said.

Defense motions will be heard later, Jarrin said.

Prosecutors said that under the confiscation process that began this week, seized assets would be frozen and not available for legal fees. Forfeiture would occur upon conviction.

Griffith-Ives Co., owned by Edwin and Dolly Ives, has paid the legal fees for the defense team of attorneys. If Ives can no longer afford private lawyers, the court would appoint legal counsel.