BERN TOWNSHIP, Pa. – A 911 call made by a desperate Nicaraguan migrant along a Pennsylvania highway led police in that state to arrest a South Florida truck driver on several felony charges Friday, authorities said.
That trucker, William Alberto Gutierrez, 63, of Doral, is accused of holding that migrant and another against their will and forcing them to work for him for free.
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One was forced to drive Gutierrez’s truck cross-country and the other was forced to cook and clean, according to the Bern Township Police Department.
Court documents state that the victim placed the 911 call at around 4 p.m. Friday as the truck traveled down U.S. 222 in Berks County. The caller described the truck, which had the word “Ego” written along the side, and dispatchers were able to track his phone during the call.
Authorities were able to locate the truck in Bern Township, outside of the city of Reading, conduct a traffic stop and find the migrants, a man and a woman, along with Gutierrez, police said.
Both migrants were in the country illegally and were in a relationship, police said. The man told police that he knew Gutierrez from his hometown in Nicaragua and he followed Gutierrez on Facebook.
Gutierrez, according to court documents, recruited the victim to become part of his “CDL training program.”
Police said he met with Gutierrez about a month prior in Virginia.
“Initially the relationship was good because victim #1 was doing all the driving while the defendant was able to relax,” a Bern Township police detective wrote in a criminal complaint. “Victim #1 would do the majority of the driving, sleep for 3-4 hours before driving again. To be clear, victim #1 does not have any sort of driver’s license, let alone a commercial driver’s license.”
That victim began to see “red flags” when he saw Gutierrez smoking marijuana in the truck and then driving, police said. He “noted that he was not paid in 10 days and started to become suspicious, but kept driving because he believed the money was coming,” the complaint states.
Police said Gutierrez promised the second victim, who joined them in early April, $2,000 per week as part of a “training program.”
“Victim #1 started noticing other signs that led him to believe the defendant was not legitimate: (Gutierrez) bypassed the computer module, which allowed them to travel non-stop, the defendant made victim #2 cook and clean for him, the defendant told them to hide in the truck at a weigh station, and they were not getting paid,” police wrote.
Police said after the pair brought up those “red flags” with Gutierrez, the relationship began to “strain.”
The victims asked for their money and to be set free, police said, but Gutierrez ”would not allow them to be free and threatened their families in Nicaragua, threatened that they would be deported and did not pay them.”
Those threats scared the pair into compliance, according to police.
Police said the male victim only felt comfortable calling 911 after noticing Gutierrez was “in a trance-like state” after smoking marijuana and “took a chance” by calling police.
Even during the interviews, police said the pair “were still scared of deportation, highlighting the power of this threat.”
Pennsylvania authorities arrested Gutierrez on a bevy of charges, including two counts of involuntary servitude, a first-degree felony in that state, along with two counts each of trafficking in individuals and nonpayment of wages.
He’s also facing two misdemeanor counts of unlawful restraint.
The two migrants were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and released on their own recognizance.
Court documents state that Gutierrez was being held in the Berks County Prison.