Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
11:34 AM PDT, May 15, 2008
An immigrant discovered in a South Los Angeles drop house Wednesday told
authorities she was
impregnated by one of the smugglers, and witnesses re****ted that several
other women were ***ually
assaulted, immigration officials said today.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents also found two weapons in the
house, a 22-caliber pistol
and a stun gun, which the immigrants said were used to control and
threaten them.
Sixty-one illegal immigrants, mostly from Central America, were found in a
single-family home on
South Normandie Avenue, living among piles of trash and rotting food.
Agents were executing a search
warrant as part of an ongoing human-smuggling investigation.
Several of the people will probably face criminal charges for their
involvement in the smuggling,
said Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for ICE. The agency is continuing to
investigate whether there is a
connection to a large-scale human-smuggling ring raided in February in Los
Angeles that allegedly
grossed $6 million to $18 million annually trans****ting about 5,000
undocumented immigrants.
Agents spent all day Wednesday interviewing the immigrants, who re****ted
being held against their
will and paying between $5,000 and $7,000 in smuggling fees to be led
across the border in Arizona.
One person re****ted paying $12,000.
"They had some pretty harrowing accounts," she said.
Among the immigrants were three toddlers, who are being held with their
mothers at a private
shelter, and six teenagers.
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