WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (WAVY) — The owner of a Williamsburg laundry business pleaded guilty Tuesday in a case involving labor trafficking of people from Central America.
The Department of Justice says George William Evans, 68, pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud and commit offenses against the United States, including human trafficking of individuals from Central America, benefiting from forced labor, money laundering and harboring undocumented non-citizens.
Prosecutors say Evans, the 50 percent owner of Northstar Holdings of Virginia LLC, which was doing business as Magnolia Cleaning Services, LLC, participated in the conspiracy to transport the victims and benefitted from their labor from early 2018 to early 2022.
He and other other coconspirators made the victims work long hours in poor working conditions, and in some cases threatened them with deportation and physical harm to them and their families, prosecutors say. One of the victims was also a child, who was forced to work night shifts.
Some of the employees lived in the laundry facility and didn’t have access to a kitchen or a bathroom with a shower and a tub.
Evans agreed to pay nearly $4 million to the U.S., after prosecutors say wage records reflected about 121 employees with alleged invalid or mismatched Social Security numbers and wage payments of more than $1.2 million to employees.
Evans is scheduled to be sentenced on June 20 and faces up to five years for conspiracy and 10 years in prison for money laundering.
