Tuesday, March 26, 2013
FORMER Tennis pro, Jean-Claude Toviave Convicted of Forcing Children to Work as Slaves in His Home in Michigan.
Former tennis pro Jean-Claude
Toviave 'trafficked four children from
Togo to the U.S. and forced them to work as slaves in his Michigan home or face
"savage" beatings and starvation'. Toviave was sentenced Monday to
more than 11 years in federal prison after a jury convicted him in October on
four counts of forced labor. He previously pleaded guilty to fraud and misuse
of visas, mail fraud and harboring aliens.
The 44-year-old former tennis pro faked
immigration papers from Africa for some of the children who were in middle
school and brought them to Michigan where he forced them to cook and clean
while starving and beating them with toilet plungers, broomsticks and
electrical cords. Toviave who played professional tennis in Togo until 1990 presented
the children as his own, but authorities and the victims' statements described
them as little more than slaves with little chance to escape in a foreign
country.
The Court filling from the prosecutors
reveals how Toviave brought four children from Togo in 2006 and forced them to
work in his home in Ypsilanti, near Ann Arbor, for nearly five years until
January 2011.
The judge also ordered Toviave to
pay two of the children $60,000 each and provide $7,200 apiece to two victims
for counseling. But both the judge and defense lawyer Randall Roberts said it
seemed unlikely Toviave would be able to come up with the money. Roberts
referred to Toviave as "penniless."
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