A former owner of two Thai restaurants who fraudulently obtained visas to bring cooks from Thailand to work for him and then compelled them to work long hours with minimal pay was sentenced Tuesday to three years and one month in federal prison.

The prosecution of Paul Jumroon, 55, and his ex-wife, Tanya Jumroon, 59, mark the first forced labor case pursued in federal court in Oregon in recent history, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Hannah Horsley.

The Jumroons owned Curry in a Hurry in Lake Oswego and Teriyaki Thai in Ridgefield, Washington. They manipulated their cooks by exaggerating debt they owed, holding onto their passports and Social Security cards, traveling to and from work with them and subjecting them to verbal abuse in the kitchens, according to prosecutors.

U.S District Judge Anna J. Brown said she struggled with the case, partly because she’s unfamiliar with this particular criminal conduct -- what she called "this dark secret'' that’s more common in the restaurant industry, which thrives on immigrant labor.

Despite a prosecutor’s characterization that Paul Jumroon "carefully orchestrated'' a forced labor scheme, the judge said she didn’t believe his actions were premeditated but the result of Jumroon’s "ignorance of the United States laws'' and his drive to succeed economically.

The government sought a three year and 10-month sentence, partly to send a strong message to other small business owners that they can’t take advantage of their employees. Paul Jumroon’s defense lawyer urged probation or home detention.

"What he already endured is significant,'' defense lawyer Kristen Winemiller said, noting he sold his two businesses and his home. "This has been a very shaming and humbling experience.''

After cooks kept leaving the restaurants to work elsewhere, Paul Jumroon traveled to his native Thailand multiple times between 2011 and 2014 to recruit chefs to come to the United States to work for him.

He promised to pay for their travel and obtain special E-2 visas, which are designed for foreign nationals who invest substantial money in a U.S business and allows them to enter the country to develop and work for that business for two years. Jumroon also promised to cover their room and board, according to prosecutors.

The cooks who Jumroon brought to the United States, though, never invested money in the businesses and worked only in the kitchens. Because none could pay the cost of their visas or travel to the United States, Jumroon paid the expenses and forced the cooks to work to reimburse him.

As a result, they were indebted to the Jumroons, prosecutors said. Most couldn’t leave because Jumroon held onto their passports and Social Security cards. They worked seven days a week, 12 hours a day. They lived in the Jumroons' Beaverton house, though at times their accommodations were meager. Two men shared a makeshift plywood-made room built in the middle of the Jumroons’ living room and had to sleep on the floor for months, Horsley said.

The cooks weren’t given keys to the home and had to travel to and from the restaurants with their boss, Horsley said. Winemiller, though, contested that, saying the cooks knew the key code to the Jumroons' Beaverton home and Jumroon helped some of the cooks learn to drive.

In his restaurant kitchens, Paul Jumroon yelled at cooks, threw kitchen utensils and threatened to send cooks home if they didn’t work fast enough, according to a sentencing memo. After one cook ran away, another was given no breaks but was too afraid to complain, the memo said.

"He knows he was intemperate in the kitchen,'' Winemiller said. "He wants things done a certain way.''

Paul Jumroon pleaded guilty in February to forced labor, conspiracy to commit visa fraud and making and subscribing a false federal income tax return in 2013.

"I’m sorry for what I did,'' he said, standing before the judge in Portland. "I’m sorry to the cooks.''

Paul Jumroon also submitted a video about his life to the judge. In it, he described arriving in the United States in 1995, living in the back room of a laundromat at first and doing machinery work for the optics company Leopold & Stevens Inc. for 15 years before opening his own restaurants. "I’m sorry for not doing everything above board and as I should have,'' he said in the video. "We were thinking it would be a good opportunity for the cooks and thinking we would all come out good in the end.''

Sentencing guidelines called for 46 to 57 months in prison, but Brown said she took into account Jumroon’s age, lack of a prior criminal history, that he accepted responsibility early for his crimes and is paying the victims full restitution for their losses.

Paul Jumroon has agreed to pay $131,390.95 in restitution to four victims and $120,384 to the Internal Revenue Service for taxes due, for a total restitution of $251,774.95.

When the sentencing hearing was done, the 55-year-old walked over to his family members and thanked them for supporting him. His daughter, who is in medical school, broke down in tears, as her father wrapped his arms around her, repeatedly trying to assure her, "That’s OK. I’m fine.''

His former wife pleaded guilty to benefiting from forced labor, an offense that’s rarely prosecuted. Tanya Jumroon is set to be sentenced Wednesday. Prosecutors are seeking a probationary sentence for her.

Labor trafficking cases aren’t easy to identify because victims often are unwilling to report the crime and are wary of law enforcement or don’t understand the law in the United States, Horsley said. They also may be isolated because they don’t know English or face other cultural barriers, she said.

Between 2009 and 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice prosecuted an average of 24 forced labor cases a year.

The case against the Jumroons resulted from a tip to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., which was forwarded to federal prosecutors in Oregon in 2015.

Investigators from the FBI, the Homeland Security Investigations, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Services sifted through employment, financial and travel records, conducted surveillance and worked with community-based organizations and interpreters to help contact and interview the victims. Federal, state and local investigators collaborated through the Oregon Foreign-Born Human Trafficking Task Force.

The collaboration is crucial “because these cases are so hard to identify and victims are hesitant to come forward,’’ Horsley said.

To obtain the E-2 visas for his cooks, Paul Jumroon identified fake investors and used financial scams to mask the absence of investments, according to the government. The couple also engaged in a cash-skimming scheme, in which they didn’t report their restaurants’ cash income.

Unlike other human trafficking crimes, forced labor doesn’t require violence. In this case, the Jumroons engaged in “non-violent coercion,’’ according to Horsley.

Images of people restrained by chains or kept in cages isn’t the norm, and is a “myth we’re trying to debunk,’’ the prosecutor said.

The federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which passed 20 years ago, was adopted to recognize modern-day trafficking, “which is much more subtle,’’ Horsley said.

Anyone identified as a victim of a “severe form of trafficking,’’ such as forced labor, is entitled to a special visa that allows a nonimmigrant to remain in the United States for four years after they’ve been identified as a victim. One of the main purposes of this T-visa is to ensure the victims remain available to law enforcement to assist in ongoing investigations, Horsley said.

“The laws of the United States are in place to protect workers’ rights and ensure they’re treated with basic fairness and human dignity,’’ Horsley said. “You can’t circumvent that, whether it’s a restaurant or a cleaning service, construction, agriculture or the fishing industry.’’

Neighbors, co-workers, building inspectors may be best suited to identify forced labor cases. Potential signs may include: workers working and living with their trafficker, workers unable to hold onto their own identification and a boss constantly speaking on behalf of their employee, Horsley said.

Prosecutors encourage anyone who may have information on other forced labor cases to contact the National Human Trafficking Response Center’s tip line at 1-888-373-7888. Callers can be anonymous.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com

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