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A Guatemalan migrant girl claims that a couple in Iowa arrested for smuggling immigrants to the United States locked her up in a room and sexually assaulted her, according to a document of the Federal Court.
Amy Francisco and her husband, Cristobal Francisco-Nicolas, are accused of harboring Guatemalan refugees at their home in Sioux City after the girl, identified only as ABF, escaped, according to an affidavit filed by federal prosecutors Thursday in the Southern District of California.
Federal prosecutors confirmed that the two men had been arrested in San Diego for smuggling and housing undocumented people, but the case will likely be transferred to a federal court in Iowa, NBC reported. San Diego.
Sioux City police spoke to ABF after she was found wandering the streets on June 5th and saying that she had been sexually assaulted. During an interview, the girl told the police that she and her father, Fernando Bartolo-Francisco, had gone to Guatemala in the United States and had been arrested at the border. They flew to Omaha after being released from the El Paso detention center because of prison overcrowding, ABF told police.
According to the affidavit, Francisco and Francisco-Nicolas recovered the father and daughter from the airport and took them to their home, where ABF was locked in a room with a metal bed and bucket.
"ABF then stated that Cristobal had raped her and that Amy had seen her unfold from the door to the locked room," the document said. "After being raped five times, ABF said that one morning Cristobal had gone to work and had not locked the door."
The girl said she left the house while Francisco was sleeping and looking for someone who spoke Spanish to get help.
Francisco-Nicholas told the police in an interview that his sister had told him about Bartolo-Francisco's desire to come to the United States with his daughter, and then made arrangements to accommodate them. Francisco-Nicholas told the police that he had paid someone in Guatemala through a money transfer service, according to the affidavit.
"Cristobal stated that he knew that he had been deceived and that the mistake he had made was to receive these people," the affidavit said. "Cristobal asked a lawyer when law enforcement authorities began to question him about the alleged rape of ABF."
Francisco told the police, in an interview, that a woman named "Sofia" had contacted her to ask her if she could pay bills to bring her relatives to Nebraska. She said that "Sofia" gave her money to buy plane tickets with her credit card.
Francisco then told the police that she and her husband had agreed to take ABF and Bartolo-Francisco, and then let them stay at home, according to the affidavit.
During the interview, ABF identified Francisco as "Sofia".
During a search of Sioux City's home, the police found three other Guatemalan citizens inside, as well as Francisco's father, Ronald Craig.
Craig told the police that the couple had arranged for at least 10 people to leave Guatemala for the US border, asking them to bring a child with them.
"Upon entering the United States, they must surrender themselves and if they are released, Cristobal and Amy will pay to allow them to travel by bus or plane to Sioux City, Iowa," indicates the document. "In Sioux City, Cristobal and Amy provide them with food, shelter, clothes and find a job for them."
Migrants help pay rent and food while living in the house, and pay Francisco and Francisco-Nicolas for travel expenses, Craig told the police.
The three migrants who lived in the couple's home were also questioned and confirmed that they were paying for rent and food, as well as the cost of their smuggling into the country.
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