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Bolaji Bolarinwa, 50, and Isiaka Bolarinwa, 67, of Moorestown were discovered when one of the victims told her college professor, who alerted the FBI, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip Sellinger said.
Originally from Nigeria, the couple were living in New Jersey as U.S. citizens when they recruited two victims to follow them, Sellinger said.
They "engaged in an egregious bait-and-switch, luring the victims with false promises of a life and an education in the United States," the U.S. attorney said.
Then, he said, they "subjected [the victims] to grueling hours, physical abuse and psychological abuse, knowing that both victims were out of lawful status while working in their home."
Bolaji Bolarinwa forced the victims to provide domestic labor and childcare services for her and her husband's children, threatening to harm them if they didn't, he said.
She also isolated them from other people and kept them under constant surveillance, the U.S. attorney said.
"Once the first victim arrived in the United States in December 2015, Bolaji Bolarinwa confiscated her passport," Platkin said.
She then pressured the woman to work every day around-the-clock for nearly a year for her and her husband, he said, "through threats of physical harm to her and her daughter, verbal abuse, isolation and constant surveillance."
Isiaka Bolarinwawas was aware of his wife’s threats and abusive behavior toward the victim and directly benefited from the victim’s cooking, cleaning and childcare," Platkin noted.
The couple went on to recruit a second victim to come to the U.S. on a student visa, he said.
Bolaji Bolarinwa similarly confiscated her passport when she arrived in April 2016 and coerced her to provide household work and childcare, Platkin said.
She relied more heavily on physical abuse this time, however, he said.
Her husband also physically abused the second victim, who eventually spoke to a professor at the college she attended, the attorney general added.
The couple rejected a plea deal from federal prosecutors following an FBI investigation, opting instead to take their chances with a jury.
Jurors found Bolaji Bolarinwa guilty of two counts of forced labor, one count of alien harboring for financial gain and two counts of illegal servitude following a two-week trial in U.S. District Court in Camden, Sellinger announced on Wednesday, April 24.
The jury also convicted Isiaka Bolarinwa, 67, of two counts of forced labor and one count of alien harboring for financial gain.
"Imagine showing up in a foreign land, hoping for a better life, and ending up trapped with no place to go and no one to turn to for help,” FBI Newark Special Agent in Charge James E. Dennehy said. “The victims in this investigation suffered in unimaginable ways at the hands of their captors, enduring years of physical and mental abuse."
Sellinger credited special agents of Dennehy's ofice with the investigation leading to the guilty verdict secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Bender along with Trial Attorney Elizabeth Hutson of the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit.
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