Convicted Rancher Hailed as a Fair Employer : Courts: With extortion and peonage charges dismissed, Somis flower grower Edwin M. Ives could face up to 16 years in prison or be placed on probation in corporate racketeering case.

A Ventura County flower rancher originally charged with enslaving hundreds of Mexican laborers was described Monday in a federal sentencing hearing as a fair employer to whom workers returned year after year for jobs.

Three former or current employees of Edwin M. Ives told U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall that Ives treated them well and never forced workers to stay on his Somis ranch against their will.

“I just think he is a normal, ordinary person, (the same) as any other businessman,” said Ricardo Santiago, who worked on Ives’ ranch for eight years.

Supporting a central defense theme, Santiago also testified that laborers who once worked for Ives were aware they might receive thousands of dollars in restitution if the rancher was convicted on federal charges.

In fact, Santiago said, the back wages were mentioned by officials from the U.S. Attorney’s office to entice him to testify against Ives. Prosecutors denied the claim.

Santiago was the first of about 15 defense witnesses expected to testify before Marshall decides in April whether to send Ives to prison.

Ives, 56, pleaded guilty last year to corporate racketeering and agreed to pay $1.5 million in back wages to 300 former workers, the stiffest fine ever levied in a U.S. immigration case.

Ives, who also admitted to seven labor and immigration crimes, faces up to 16 years in prison. But he could receive a lesser term or be placed on probation under a plea bargain with federal prosecutors.

In exchange for Ives’ plea, the U.S. attorney’s office agreed to dismiss extortion and peonage counts that brought the case international attention as the largest slavery prosecution in U.S. history when it broke in 1990.

Prosecutors say they are still convinced that Ives virtually imprisoned laborers recruited from rural Mexican villages, forcing them to work for $1 an hour and selling them food and sundries at inflated prices from a company store.

But three witnesses Monday flatly contradicted the stories of 23 prosecution witnesses who painted a picture of slave-like conditions in testimony and sworn declarations.

Contrary to prosecution claims, two witnesses said they were free to leave the ranch to visit family and friends and to shop for groceries. They said they were not restricted to the ranch because of unpaid smugglers’ fees or forced to buy provisions at the company store.

One witness, however, acknowledged under questioning that he once told a federal investigator that workers were restricted to the ranch until their smugglers’ fees were paid.

The third witness, a native of the United States, lived off the ranch in Oxnard.

All three witnesses said Ives’ workers frequently took taxis to Oxnard and sometimes stayed in motels. And they said workers spent or saved money in amounts far in excess of what the prosecution said they were paid.

The witnesses--a $13.25-an-hour jack-of-all-trades, a Guatamalan teacher who worked as a janitor and a laborer who oversaw some ranch activities--said conditions at the 50-acre Somis compound were good.

Emeterio Andrade, 62, said that despite his history as a labor organizer in Oxnard’s strawberry fields and as a shop steward in a carpenters’ union, he never saw a reason to argue for improved conditions at the Somis ranch.

“There was no need,” said Andrade. “I was treated like the rest. Nobody was forced to stay there.”

As the ranch’s handyman, Andrade said he made sure the workers’ quarters were well heated and sanitary. Government inspectors never found any serious problems, he said.

Prosecutors noted, however, that during one 1989 visit by the U.S. Department of Labor, inspectors found numerous serious health problems, including a large rat-sized hole in a building, filthy showers and unsanitary eating areas.

Two witnesses said they owed Ives a debt of gratitude.

Santiago, a native of a rural mountaintop village in southern Mexico, said Ives helped him get his legal residency under a federal amnesty program in the mid-1980s, a move that gave him more freedom when looking for a job elsewhere.

“The gentleman would say to take advantage of that system,” Santiago said. Ives also hired four of his relatives, Santiago said.

Mario Sanchez, 30, said Ives helped both him and his parents become legal residents and even helped pay his parents’ way from Guatemala. Ives encouraged Sanchez to learn English so he could use his skills as a teacher and accountant, the witness said.

“While Mr. Eddie looked for a job outside for me, I worked for him,” Sanchez said.

But prosecutors noted in an interview that Sanchez is a relative of Ives’ top foreman, Pedro Pinzon, who is also a defendant in the case.

The testimony--contrasted with that of the prosecution--again demonstrated the sharp split among former Ives employees that surprised attorneys on both sides when the case first broke in April, 1990.

The starkly different stories are partly the result of the different ways ranch employees were treated, Assistant U.S. Atty. Alfredo X. Jarrin said.

“He favored those who did not owe smuggling fees and who didn’t have debts to the ranch,” Jarrin said.

Jarrin said the case against Ives was demonstrated by Ives’ guilty pleas and by the inability of defense attorneys to shake six prosecution witnesses during cross-examination over the last two months.

But defense attorney Robert Talcott said the difference in stories is more the result of greed.

Some former workers simply “made up a story in the hopes of financial gain,” Talcott said.

Santiago even testified that, in a 1990 meeting, a Jarrin-led delegation used restitution as an incentive to testify for the government.

“They said there was a suit against Griffith-Ives Co. and they were trying to compensate the workers who had worked there,” he said.

Jarrin said no such comment was ever made to Santiago or to any other former Ives employee.

“They had heard about the suit, but we told them that was not what we were interested in,” Jarrin said. Santiago also testified that Jarrin directed him to tell only the truth.

Most former Ives employees can claim between $1,000 and $15,000 from Ives’ $1.5 million in restitution. Twenty-nine laborers who are plaintiffs in a civil lawsuit stand to receive more.

Testimony by defense witnesses is scheduled to resume March 15.