An Avon Park woman who admitted to abusing H-2A visa workers as part of her guilty plea to racketeering has been granted permission to leave Florida to work while awaiting sentencing. The work? Supervising H-2A visa workers.
And, the Fort Meade company that Christina Gamez is working for, Gracia & Sons, is owned by a Frostproof’s Jose Gracia. He started Gracia & Sons while the U.S Department of Labor was about to debar his first company, Jose M. Gracia Harvesting, from the H-2A visa program after violations that included underpaying workers and forcing them to sleep on the floor in rodent- and fly-infested housing.
Gracia’s letter in Tampa federal court documents requesting Gamez’s permission to leave the middle district of Florida said he needed her “to travel to assist in work as I need. She will be monitoring the housing, work placement or any other task(s) that might be needed.”
The motion was unopposed by prosecutors.
What follows about Gamez, Gracia, Gracia & Sons and Jose M. Gracia Harvesting comes from Gamez’s guilty plea in Tampa federal court; U.S. Department of Labor documents and releases on Gracia and his companies; and state of Florida records.
After a Miami Herald reporter left a message at Gracia & Sons for Gracia, a woman called back and said any callback would follow a conversation with their attorney. The company has not returned the call for comment.
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