Aloun Farms may be too important to fail in an island state that once relied on pineapples and sugar cane but grows less than 15 percent of the food it consumes, according to supporters of defendants Alec and Mike Sou.
“The incarceration of Alec and Mike Sou would threaten our food security and could endanger our future sustainability on Oahu,’’ wrote Kioni Dudley, president of the community group Friends of Makakilo, in a letter asking District Judge Susan Oki Mollway for leniency. “Find some method of punishment which allows them to stay in their positions at Aloun Farms.’’
The Sou brothers are asking for a light sentence with little or no jail time based in part on the idea that their farm is too valuable to the islands’ food supply to let it go untended. The plea deal they agreed to in January called for up to five years imprisonment.
Prosecutors accuse them of manipulating the Thai workers by promising at least a year’s employment at pay of $9.42 an hour, but instead delivering only a few months of work for little pay.
If the workers complained, Mike Sou threatened to send them home without any way to repay recruitment fees exceeding $30,000 that they borrowed from Thai money lenders, federal authorities say.
