Friday, August 05, 2011

Asshats of the Week

OK, so this couple in Nebraska, the Alstatt's, took a legal immigrant from Laos named Ae Xaypanya, and used him as an indentured servant.
Xaypanya said the Alstatts took his green card, passport and Social Security card and, at one point, demanded $25,000 for them. They also set up a joint bank account with him and withdrew his wages...

Xaypanya then went to the Alstatts’ tailor shop in Omaha to retrieve his documents and signed a contract saying he’d pay $9,000 for them...

Xaypanya also learned that papers he previously signed thinking they were medical insurance forms were actually life insurance documents, naming the Alstatts’ daughter as the beneficiary.

In a 2009 search of the Alstatts’ home and business, agents found hundreds of files on foreign nationals containing immigration documents, court records say. Investigators also found blank Laotian birth certificates, altered identity documents and evidence that the couple was practicing writing other people’s signatures...

Immigration officers tried to interview other alleged victims but found they were reluctant to speak against the couple. Some immediately called the Alstatts after being interviewed, according to court documents. One woman who allegedly worked for the Alstatts without pay told authorities she was afraid to testify against them.
They aren't slavers. They're just good capitalists.

You can bet they vote Republican.

1 comment:

Nance said...

You betcha they do.

My husband and I used to wonder why we'd never made much money, why we tended to make just about what we needed and never managed to produce an idea or product, or strike out in an entrepreneurial direction and hit it big. All we'd ever done was service kinds of work or public employment like career military and teaching, social work, that kind of stuff. We felt small, thinking we just didn't have some essential component in us somehow. We would have liked to have a bundle to pass on to the kids, something we could point to and say we'd made our mark on the world.

Now? Bragging points, brother.