Mexican Maid Says Family Held Her Captive

A 19-year-old Mexican woman testified Wednesday that she was beaten, deprived of medical care and held as a virtual captive in the home of a San Diego family that had recruited her to work as a maid.

Juana Hernandez Ortiz, a petite, dark-haired native of the southern state of Oaxaca, also testified that she attempted to escape several times, but that her employers--themselves Mexican citizens--threatened to use their influence in Mexico to send her parents to jail, perhaps by planting drugs on her father. Her employers also threatened to turn her over to U.S. immigration officials, she said.

Her ordeal, which she says lasted for more than 15 months, ended Jan. 10, authorities say, when San Diego police, acting on an anonymous tip, raided the south San Diego household on Cerrissa Street and arrested three family members. Hernandez, who had crossed into the United States illegally, was placed in a church-run, minimum-security detention facility for undocumented immigrant minors and women; she still resides there.

The San Diego County district attorney’s office has filed rarely invoked charges of “involuntary servitude,” or slavery, against the three family members--Esperanza Vargas, 53; Claudia Vargas, 24, the daughter, and Raul Vargas, 22.

The woman was never paid for her labor, according to Victor Nunez, the deputy district attorney who is prosecuting the case.

All three are also accused of theft of the victim’s labor; the mother and son are charged with assaulting the victim. If convicted, the mother and son could be sentenced to five years in state prison; the daughter could be sentenced to four years.

All three suspects have entered not-guilty pleas and are being held in lieu of bails of $100,000 to $150,000.

The woman began testimony Wednesday in Municipal Court as part of a preliminary hearing in the case. Her testimony is scheduled to resume today.

Donald LeVine, a San Diego attorney representing Raul Vargas, said in an interview that the case was being “blown out of proportion” and was largely the result of a falling out between the Vargas family and Hernandez. He denied that the woman was held captive--and, in fact, contended that the family had once thrown a birthday party for her.

“My information is that she could have left any time she wanted,” said LeVine, who contended that at least one witness had seen an unsupervised Hernandez outside the house many times, washing a car.

But Hernandez, during more than an hour of testimony delivered in a soft monotone, painted a picture of a dreary, captive life in a San Diego condominium, under constant threat of beatings, particularly by Esperanza Vargas.

Once, during last June or July, Hernandez testified, the mother and son became enraged at her, apparently because she dropped a spoon while doing the dishes.

“On that occasion, he (Raul Vargas) hit me with a broomstick and he broke it on my arm,” said Hernandez, who is perhaps 5 feet tall and was dressed in a white cotton smock and trousers.

The mother, meanwhile, pulled Hernandez’s hair, she testified, tearing a clump from her head.

Afterward, Hernandez said, her wounded hand was immobile for about two weeks, but she was given no time off work. She said she never received medication for the scratches and other hair-pulling attacks that she attributed to the mother.

When police questioned her last month, according to testimony by Timothy Williams, a San Diego police detective who worked on the case, Hernandez had scars on her arms and patches of hair missing from her head. He said she looked “gaunt” and “frail.”

Claudia Vargas, the daughter in the household, told police that the missing hair stemmed from a scalp condition that afflicted Hernandez, according to court testimony. Vargas said that the family offered her medication, but that the maid refused to take it, according to testimony.

The Vargas family first recruited Hernandez in 1989 to work as a maid for the family in Mexico City, Hernandez testified. She worked for the family for several weeks in Mexico City and then accompanied them to Tijuana, where she said she worked for them as a maid for another two weeks.

On Sept. 28, 1989, Hernandez testified, she crossed the border illegally from Tijuana, in a trip arranged by the Vargas family, who coached her on the passage. Claudia Vargas told her that the family would help her attain legal status in the United States, said Hernandez, who added that she planned to continue her education once in California. The family told her that she would be paid for her work, and that her family in Mexico would also be sent regular payments, Hernandez said.

However, once she was at the Vargas home in San Diego, Hernandez testified, it became apparent that life would be quite different than she had been led to believe. Esperanza Vargas threatened to turn her over to U.S. immigration authorities if she complained, Hernandez said, and in February, 1990, she used corporal punishment during a dispute.

“She beat me with a wooden utensil, and she scratched me,” Hernandez said of Esperanza Vargas.

The mother also insisted on reading Hernandez’s outgoing letters to her family, Hernandez said. The maid later found that a number of letters--including a Mother’s Day greeting to her mother in Mexico--had never been sent, she testified.

Although she first slept in a corridor at the Vargas house, Hernandez said she was later assigned to the garage. Both doors leading from the garage were locked from the outside, Hernandez said, adding that she was occasionally locked in for more than a day while the family went away.

The Vargas family did provide her with food, but on one occasion they left her only a package of cookies, some milk and two sandwiches for a day and half, Hernandez said. Hernandez had no access to the bathroom during that time, she testified.

“I had to hold myself until they returned,” Hernandez said.