Anahi Del Rosario Flores-Saldana appeared for sentencing Thursday, September 7, in the Tenth Judicial District Court Judge Thomas Stockard presiding over two Category B Felonies of Extortion, to which she pled No Contest in April.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Lane Mills told the court that the state and the defense stipulated restitution of $27,000 on the First Count and $55,000 on the Second Count.
“This is the kind of case, Your Honor, that just shocks the conscience,” began Mills, who told the court the victims are hard-working people who, unfortunately, are not in the United States legally, which “makes them ripe to be a victim of this type.” According to Mills, the victims met the defendant at the Washoe County Medical Examiner’s Office, where they had gone to identify the remains of their nephew. Flores-Saldana volunteered to help. However, shortly after she told them she was with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the families of the deceased needed to pay her $800 a month or they would be deported. Mills provided the court with dates and amounts of documented payments made via direct deposit payments on each count.
The family members also paid cash, which is not documented. She helped “herself to the $55,000 settlement check that was received for the nephew’s death,” explained Mills, who told the court, “This is what a modern-day slaver looks like. This defendant. This is literally slavery. These people didn’t work for themselves, day and night. They worked for her. They had to turn over everything – to her.” Mills said if she planned to pay the victims restitution, “We would have received something by now.” He urged the court to impose maximum penalties. The final words of the state’s argument were, “Everybody should be treated equally under the law.”
Churchill County Public Defender Jacob Sommer, representing the defendant, stated, “While defendants come to sit in this courtroom frequently for many different reasons, it is often not as clear cut as one party may want it to be. There are circumstances and facts that help to place this situation in a better context.” He pointed out that Flores-Saldana had no criminal history, has demonstrated cooperation, and is a single mother of five daughters between the ages of 6 and 15. He said, “This is not some pimp or slaver who goes around and preys upon, as the state says, these kinds of people. Quite the contrary.” Sommer said the defendant and the victims were very good friends that they spent holidays together, and their children ate together. “It’s simply not as clear cut as the state would make it seem.” He said while his client did receive money from some of these people, she was also paying for funeral expenses, she was lending money. The unfortunate problem we have here is that these kinds of interactions were not documented. They weren’t memorialized in a contract because they were friends. These were verbal… [we] can’t document the interactions that happened.”
The defense proposed that Flores-Saldana pay restitution at $600 a month, to be divided equally between the two families, with the additional requirement that restitution be paid in full six months before her probation is completed. Sommer’s final statement was, “With these facts in mind, we ask the court to allow my client to be sentenced appropriately but be granted the privilege of probation so that she may begin efforts to make these families whole.”
Flores-Saldana stated she regrets “not documenting everything.” She said she agreed to pay as ordered. “I just want the opportunity to pay the state what they’re asking me to pay. I just want the opportunity to do what is right.”
Four victims made victim impact statements, speaking to the court through an interpreter. One said he didn’t want the $600 the defense is proposing because that isn’t even how much they paid her monthly. “I would be more happy if the judge would give her jail time would send her to prison. Even if she didn’t pay my money, I would be more happy.” Another said her family suffered a great deal, and she said her kids were left without milk many times because of this. A third concluded her statement to the court with, “She laughed at us so much. She made fun of us.” The last victim to speak said, “Every time she called, she would want money; she would expect money.” He said the defendant says she has daughters, “We also have our kids.”
Judge Stockard imposed fees and assessments, including $1,925 for extradition. He ordered a total restitution of $82,000. On each count of Extortion, Flores-Saldana received 38-96 months and a fine of $5,000, to be served consecutively for an aggregate sentence of 76-192 months in a Nevada State Prison and an aggregate fine of $10,000. The judge said he considered probation, but “I’m not going to grant you that privilege. You will be given credit for 13 days for time served, and you are remanded to the custody of the Sheriff for imposition of the sentence.”
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