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Bienert Katzman Littrell Williams LLP's Thomas H. Bienert, Jr. and Anne Uyeda scored a significant victory for their client, Alec Sou, in the human trafficking prosecution of Mr. Sou and his brother Mike Sou, owners of Aloun Farms on the island of Oahu.
BKLW was retained after Alec Sou had pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to hold 44 Thai immigrants in a condition of forced labor on Aloun Farms and the judge rejected the plea agreement. After the rejection of Mr. Sou's plea agreement, the government filed a 13-count superseding indictment charging BKLW's client and his brother with conspiracy to hold the Thai immigrants in forced labor, substantive counts of forced labor, document servitude, conspiracy to commit visa fraud, harboring for financial gain, and obstructing an official proceeding by offering video evidence in court that the government claimed contained false and misleading representations.
Approximately five days into the trial held in the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii, and after BKLW and its co-counsel Thomas Otake vigorously cross-examined the government's main witnesses, the government made an oral motion to dismiss all charges in the superseding indictment. The judge granted the motion and dismissed the case.
The Honolulu Civil Beat maintained a real-time blog of events that occurred during and immediately after the trial. After the government's surprise dismissal of all charges, its reporter spoke to jurors, who uniformly praised BKLW and noted that the defense was "very organized and very strong" and "did an outstanding job."
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