A Florida was sentenced to seven years in federal prison last week for the forced labor of an an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, whom she hired as a pregnancy surrogate and went on to abuse and treat as a slave.
Esthela Clark, 49, who is a legal permanent resident, also faces deportation to her native Mexico after serving the sentence US District Judge Timothy Corrigan handed down in federal court in Jacksonville on Thursday.
Clark, who has three grown children, pleaded guilty in March 2017. According to evidence presented at the sentencing hearing, in late 2012, Clark traveled to Guadalajara, Mexico, where she met her then-26-year-old victim, identified in court documents only as Y.L.
She told the woman that she was searching for someone to serve as a pregnancy surrogate, and that the process would be medically supervised.
Off to prison: Esthela Clark, 49, was sentenced to seven years in federal prison last week for enslaving an undocumented Mexican pregnancy surrogate
New life: The victim, known only as Y.L., was allowed to stay in the US after her release from captivity and had a baby of her own in 2016 (pictured)
The victim, a citizen of Mexico, agreed to serve as a surrogate for Clark in exchange for a payment of thousands of dollars once a baby was delivered.
Clark arranged for so-called ‘coyotes’ to smuggle Y.L. across the border from Mexico into the United States; the victim ultimately arrived in Jacksonville in December 2012.
According to a press release from the US Department of Justice, almost immediately, Clark began attempting to inseminate Y.L. using syringes containing her boyfriend’s sperm that she had retrieved from used condoms.
This procedure was undertaken three to four times a day, on Clark’s dining room floor, when Clark believed her victim was ovulating.
When, after several months of trying, Y.L. did not become pregnant, Clark began forcing her to have unprotected sex with strangers.
She also forced her victim to engage in domestic labor through physical and psychological abuse.
On one occasion, after Clark believed that the victim had used too much bleach while cleaning, Clark forced the victim to sleep in a puddle of bleach on the floor.
DIY surrogacy: Court documents said after smuggling Y.L. into the US, Clark (left) tried to get her pregnant using syringes containing her boyfriend’s (right) sperm that she had retrieved from used condoms
She also isolated the woman from her family and limited her to a diet consisting exclusively of canned beans, resulting in a 65-pound weight loss.
Clark was arrested in 2015 a vigilant neighbor in Jacksonville noticed the malnourished and bruised victim washing cars outside and alerted the authorities.
‘The victim in this case was rescued from unthinkable circumstances,’ said HSI Tampa Special Agent in Charge James C. Spero. ‘Now, the perpetrator will be held accountable, thanks to a concerned citizen, HSI special agents, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Border Patrol.’
DailyMail.com reported exclusively last year that following her rescue from captivity, Y.L. was allowed to stay and work in the US. The woman has since settled down with a boyfriend and welcomed a baby boy in 2016.
Clark and Y.L. first met in 2012 in Guadalajara, western Mexico, where they were introduced through a friend.
Clark told the younger woman she was seeking a pregnancy surrogate to carry a baby for her and her boyfriend, Roland Castellanas.
Y.L. agreed and Clark then paid about $3,000 to human traffickers, who escorted Y.L. across the border to Texas, where their accomplices picked her up and transported to Jacksonville, Florida, arriving on December 2, 2012.
Y.L. moved into Clark and Castellanas’s one-bedroom apartment, which they shared with the woman’s grown son, leaving the surrogate to sleep on the dining room floor for the next two years. Y.L. did not speak English and was soon stripped of her papers and phone.
Investigators said Clark threatened to harm Y.L.’s family back in Mexico and warned her that she would know if she tried to keep secrets from her because she could read tarot cards.
A week after arriving, Clark began taking her boyfriend’s semen from used condoms before using plastic syringes to inject it into Y.L.’s vagina on the dining room floor without any medical supervision.
Prosecutors said the only time Y.L. ever saw a doctor was to receive pregnancy tests.
After each ‘procedure,’ Clark forced the woman to lie on pillows with ‘her legs pointed in the air, naked from the waist down and stay in that position for at least 20 minutes,’ according to charging documents.
Clark’s DIY methods failed to produce the desired result, and after each failed attempt she became more ‘psychologically and physically abusive.’
Clark prevented Y.L. from bathing or washing her clothes for weeks on end. She blamed the woman’s inability to conceive on her excess weight and decided to feed her nothing but beans so she would slim down.
Close quarters: Y.L. spent two years living with Clark and her boyfriend in their one-bedroom Jacksonville, Florida, apartment (pictured), which they shared with the woman’s grown son, leaving the surrogate to sleep on the dining room floor
Clarks also put the victim to work, forcing her to walk her pet dog, Fancy, wash her cars and clean her adult son’s home.
Desperate to get some return on her ‘investment’, she then forced Y.L. ‘to have sex with two complete strangers’ in an effort to get her pregnant the ‘traditional’ way, according to the documents.
The first ‘donor’ was a middle-aged man who came to pick up the rent when Clark and Y.L. stayed at a Missouri trailer park where her boyfriend had a construction job.
Clark picked out the second man while shopping at Walmart, inviting him to their trailer five days later to have sex with Y.L. who went through with it because she ‘felt she had no other option’.
The blonde divorcee’s plot unravelled after Y.L. confided in a friend she met through church, and who in January 2015 took the woman into her home after she finally escaped her captor.
The friend took photos of the victim’s physical injuries and contacted the US Department of Homeland Security, resulting in Clark’s arrest and eventual indictment.