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OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY
BRADLEY J. SCHLOZMAN
Contact Jim Cross
(316) 269-6481
400 East Ninth Street, Room 5510
Kansas City, MO 64106
www.usdoj.gov/usao/mow
SEPTEMBER 19, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HUMAN TRAFFICKING INTIATIVE THREE KC MEN, TWO RUSSIAN NATIONALS CHARGED WITH FORCED LABOR OF EIGHT RUSSIAN STUDENTS
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Bradley J. Schlozman, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that the managers of Frosty Treats ice cream truck company, along with the maintenance worker at a Northland apartment complex and two Russian nationals, were charged in federal court today with aiding and abetting each other in the forced labor of eight Russian students.
David L. Carslake, 55, David H. Mackintosh, 45, and Jeffrey S. Guinn, 45, all residents of Kansas City, Mo., and Evgeny Sergeyevich Filimonov, 20, and Vadim Aleksandvovich-Tokarev, 21, both citizens of Russia, were charged in a criminal complaint filed under seal on Monday, Sept. 18, 2006. That complaint was unsealed and made public today upon the arrest and initial court appearances of the defendants.
Each of the co-defendants is charged with aiding and abetting each other from Jan. 1 to Sept. 17, 2006, to obtain the labor of a person by means of the abuse of law and the legal process and by a scheme intended to cause the person to believe they would suffer serious harm if they did not perform such labor.
According to an affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, eight Russian students from Voronozh, Russia, were recruited to work in the United States under a student work program. The students registered with a company named InterAir in Russia, which advertised a program offering a cultural, educational, and financially rewarding summer in the United States. The students signed an employment contract in order to gain a visa that would allow them to legally travel and be employed within the United States. Each of the students borrowed $2,500 to pays fees to travel to the United States, arriving on different dates in June 2006. None of the students had previously traveled to the United States and some did not speak any English.
Carslake and Mackintosh, managers of Frosty Treats, 620 E. Linwood Blvd., Kansas City, allegedly used threats and psychological and financial pressure to force the Russian students to work driving ice cream trucks for the company. Filiminov, an employee who worked at Frosty Treats' Kansas City office and traveled to Russia, and Aleksandvovich-Tokarev, who worked in Russia, were involved in recruiting the students.
Filimonov and Aleksandvovich-Tokarev were untruthful about the actual living and working conditions that he Russians would experience at Frosty Treats, the affidavit says. The students worked 13 hours a day, seven days a week, for less than minimum wage, which was paid in cash. In one example cited by the affidavit, a Russian student told investigators that he worked 13 hours a day for 62 days for $700 - averaging 87 cents per hour. If the students did not meet their quota for the amount of ice cream sold each day, the affidavit says, Frosty Treats would not reimburse gas money, a truck rental fee, and a truck deposit, so that at the end of the day a driver could owe Frosty Treats money. Due to the quotas, the affidavit says, some of the students used their own savings to turn in to Mackintosh because they feared the consequences if they did not turn in enough money.
Frosty Treats withheld $225 per month from each of the students, which they were told was for rent. According to the indictment, the students were housed in two apartments at Duquesene Village, 2025 N.E. Russell Road, Kansas City, Mo. The apartments, the affidavit says, were each one-bedroom, one-bathroom units with little furniture except mattresses on the floors. At one point in June, there were six males living on the floor in one of the apartments and five males living on the floor in the other apartment. Guinn, the maintenance worker at Duquesene Village, allegedly had a key to their apartments and checked on them. He often came into the apartments while they were gone at work.
Frosty Treats provided the students with an old van, which they were told could only be used to travel between their apartment and Frosty Treats. Filimonov allegedly told the students that there was a global positioning tracker on the van, so that Carslake and Mackintosh would know if they deviated from their path. They were not permitted to use the van to buy groceries and would secretly try to buy food during their working hours.
The students were not permitted to have a mailbox key or a telephone in their apartment, and were ordered to stop using a telephone at the apartment complex lobby. The students secretly found a public library where they could get free Internet access to contact their families, but Carslake and Mackintosh allegedly found out and told them they could not use the library while they were supposed to be out selling ice cream.
Schlozman cautioned that the charge contained in the complaint is simply an accusation, and not evidence of guilt. Evidence supporting the charge must be presented to a federal trial jury, whose duty is to determine guilt or innocence.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Cynthia Phillips. It was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department.