MAJURO, Marshall Islands - Larry Muller had the air conditioner running full tilt in his late-model sedan as he cruised the dusty streets of this steamy atoll, pointing out the homes of recruits he has sent to America as contract workers in nursing homes.

He drove past a hut by a heap of junk and rusting construction equipment, the home of a young wife with three children whom he'd dispatched to Florida, earning himself a finder's fee of $500.

Down the road lived the family of a teen-age brother and sister he had sent to Iowa, putting another $1,000 in his pocket. Their parents support their 13 siblings, who play nearby on a fallen telephone pole that lies along the sea.

"I know some people say it's like slavery, but the majority are really happy," insisted Muller, whose full-time job is directing a merchant marine training program for the government.

Some 8,000 miles away, down a neat, palm-lined street and past a security guard in a gated community near Naples, Fla., is the place that Muller's American partner, Dennis DeMichele, a one-time radio station manager, calls home.

"I was about to go fishing," he said on a sunny morning in June, but agreed to discuss his recruiting business in the community's coffee shop. "I just got an order for eight [workers] the other day," he said. Each would fetch him a $5,500 fee from a nursing home.

A yearlong investigation by The Sun and the Orlando Sentinel has found that Muller and DeMichele are key players in a ruthless international business in which thousands of Pacific islanders are shipped to the United States on one-way tickets and consigned by "body brokers" to one to two years of virtual servitude at nursing homes and amusement parks. The workers are bound by contracts that require them to pay damages of up to $6,250 - equivalent to as much as half their annual wages - if they walk off the job.

A U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service internal memorandum states that such contracts may violate a 2-year-old federal law banning "human trafficking," the term used by governments to describe modern-day slavery, a practice condemned by the United States and the United Nations.

The document cited two clauses of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 that prohibit workers from being held in "debt bondage" and "involuntary servitude" through "the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process."

Though the companies have different names, their methods of recruiting the islanders and binding them to American employers through legal contracts and promissory notes are similar.

Principal figures in the field include:

DeMichele, 61, one of the most active recruiters through his firm DeMichele Et Al. Inc., charges among the highest fees in the business and boasts that he delivers a more-compliant employee. The Marshallese, he says, are "more trustworthy" and "a little more sophisticated" than the Micronesians he used to import. His partnership with the well-connected Muller, 41, won him an audience with the president of the Marshall Islands when he was launching his business.

Cathy Massey, 46, a registered nurse with a background in training nursing home aides, owns J/C Placement Services of Dallas, Ga., in partnership with Johnny Hebel, 45, a Micronesian health official. She blamed nursing homes for workers' discontent, saying the facilities treat them like "slaves."

Donald Finn, 66, pioneered the importing of Micronesian health workers five years ago. When it came time for one of his companies, Medical Placement Services Inc. of Bonita Springs, Fla., to pay workers' airfares home, the firm was legally dissolved, leaving hundreds stranded. A second, Guardian Solutions Inc., went bankrupt with the same result. In a sworn statement, Finn's former lawyer accused him of running "a pyramid scheme" that hoodwinked nursing homes.

David Bencivenga, 55, head of North Pacific Trading Co. of Kissimmee, Fla., talks about transporting hundreds of workers across thousands of miles as casually as if he were shipping woodcarvings. In fact, he tried unsuccessfully to sell such handicrafts to SeaWorld in Orlando before becoming a recruiter.

Important connections helped Bencivenga, an actuary, get his start in the recruiting business. The governor of Pohnpei, part of Micronesia, gave him a letter of recommendation for a key contract, and Bencivenga's partner, Hubert Yamada, was a senior Micronesian official. They met while Bencivenga, an American, was working as a consultant for island governments.

"We were trying to think of some kind of business where you could export from Micronesia," said Bencivenga. "We tried several different things. All of them failed."

Then they had a better idea: "What about the kids? You can just bring them in."

Under a 16-year-old agreement, residents of the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands can enter the United States without visas and work indefinitely.

"You can import maybe a thousand a year, and you don't have to worry about a quota system," said Bencivenga. "They can fill any labor shortage you can find."

That makes them valuable commodities to employers, especially nursing home operators, who say they are unable to find Americans willing to fill low-paying jobs as certified nursing assistants, whose duties include washing, grooming and feeding, and emptying the bedpans of elderly patients.

'We all cried'

Norma Schultz, assistant administrator at Caroline Nursing Center in Denton, Md., said her facility turned to recruiters two years ago to fill chronic vacancies.

Such jobs typically pay $6 to $8 an hour and are subject to high turnover. That was particularly true in the days before the 2001 recession, when the economy was booming.

"Unemployment was at an all-time low," said Schultz. "It was very hard to find workers. We had exhausted the welfare-to-work program."

A deal with the brokers offered a solution. Finn, through Medical Placement Services Inc., supplied Micronesian workers. DeMichele's firm supplied workers from the Marshall Islands.

Some of the islanders working in Denton felt frustrated and misled. They had expected to be nursing students, not aides taking care of senior citizens. However, they felt they had little choice but to stay and work.

"We all cried the first time we realized what the job was," said Merlyna Viti, 23, a Micronesian who has fulfilled her contract at Denton. "We have no nursing homes back home. Families stay together."

"It's hard work," said Grace Metek, 19.

"I thought it would be coming to school," said a Micronesian co-worker, Rieko Chaniel, 21.

They were reluctant, they said, to venture out on their own in a strange country and realized that they were legally bound by the contracts they'd signed.

A typical Finn contract from 1999 gives Medical Placement Services "exclusive rights to negotiate and secure employment on behalf of client in the U.S. for a period of two years."

Another clause said, "Should client be terminated for cause or voluntarily leave without just cause, ... client agrees ... that a liquidated damages sum of $2,500 will constitute appropriate compensation."

DeMichele's contracts also require workers to pay damages if they quit early. Muller said he often gets recruits' parents to co-sign the agreements to protect his investment in the workers.

"I really feel bad about it," Muller said.

The Denton nursing home advanced new workers $400 to help them get settled in two townhouses it acquired and deducted $25 a week from their paychecks until the debt was paid.

"We don't make any profit" on the rental, Schultz said.

And Caroline Nursing Center did not doubly indenture workers by requiring them to reimburse the facility for damages if they breached their contracts, as some homes do.

Workers that Finn and DeMichele sent to the West Ridge Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Knoxville, Iowa, were required to sign a second contract with the home that obligated them to pay $3,750 in damages if they left early. That raised the amount owed if they fled to $6,250 - a large sum for workers earning $5.90 to $6.90 per hour.

Living in comfort

Even as imported workers are often consigned to servile jobs and substandard living conditions, the body brokers clearly enjoy a comfortable lifestyle.

DeMichele makes his home in an expensive, gated community on Florida's Gulf Coast. Bencivenga has a two-story house on 4.6 acres in suburban Kissimmee. Massey lives on a 3.6-acre property overlooking a private pond in suburban Atlanta. During divorce proceedings in 1999, Finn listed his net worth as $1.4 million and his car as a new Mercedes Benz.

But in interviews, all sought to dispel any notion that running a recruitment program was making them wealthy, and Finn has suffered financial reverses since then.

"The margins aren't that great," said DeMichele. Of the $5,500 fee he charges, "$1,800 goes for training and certification, $1,500 for plane fare and $500 to Larry [Muller]," he said.

According to his figures, his share was $1,700 for each of the 130 recruits he has brought from the Marshall Islands since striking out on his own from Finn in January 2000.

Muller's $500 cut means that he need recruit only four islanders a year to earn more than his country's annual per capita income.

A stocky man with jet-black hair who speaks in swift bursts, Muller works out of an office in his home, which has a sign in the window advertising nursing assistant jobs. He drives a late-model Mitsubishi sedan, a sign of affluence in a country where many own an ancient junker or can't afford a car.

He said, however, that much of his income from recruiting is offset by travel costs and phone calls to the United States, and that he really is engaged in a form of charity.

"I know Dennis [DeMichele] is making a lot of money," Muller said. "My intention was not to make any money but to help people ... go overseas and learn something new."

But he said he knew that he was placing recruits in jobs they were sure to find distasteful.

"The kind of work they are doing is really bad," he acknowledged. "It's dirty work. Nobody in the United States likes to do it, so the Marshallese have to do it."

But that did not deter him from the recruiting business. He even signed up his sister, who was sent to a nursing home in Iowa.

By DeMichele's calculations, no money from his $5,500 fee is left for return airfare. And if workers become dissatisfied with life in America, they can't walk away because of the binding contracts they have signed. It is up to them to find their own way home. The company pays only for one-way tickets, not return fares.

"We used to do that, but people were abusing it," Muller said.

Finding profit in need

While low-paying jobs were becoming increasingly hard to fill in America, the island economies had collapsed in the late 1990s after a sharp decline in U.S. aid. Unemployment rates climbed to 30 percent.

Finn, who had been in the nursing home business for three decades, was the first to recognize this convergence of needs, and felt that he could profit from it. He set up Medical Placement Services in 1997, and later brought DeMichele and Massey into the business. He used Hebel, a nurse at the government-owned hospital in Pohnpei, as an island recruiter.

DeMichele, Massey and Hebel eventually parted with Finn and set up their own recruiting operations for the nursing home market.

These days, DeMichele's recruits come exclusively from the Marshall Islands because, he said, the Marshallese are "more trustworthy" and "a little more sophisticated" than Micronesians. They're "more obedient," said Muller, his partner.

Bencivenga also entered the recruiting field, looking for amusement park workers.

The competition between brokers became fierce, Yamada said. It was a business rife with infighting, as the recruiters routinely accused one another of ethical and legal lapses. Finn alleged that his former lawyer pirated his accounts and that vengeful associates lied about his business affairs. Massey blamed nursing home operators when recruits walked off the job and she had to find replacements, costing her money. And Bencivenga said workers from whom he collected weekly fees cost him money through drinking and loafing.

Workers, many barely out of high school and some lacking degrees, spoke of arriving in the United States woefully unprepared for the changes in culture and climate, without a mastery of English, and with little practical training for their new life.

"They arrived in flip-flops, sandals ... hardly any clothes," said Donna Taylor, administrator at William Hill Manor in Easton, who contracted with Finn for Micronesian workers. "They had never seen snow before."

"For many, this is their first trip ever even leaving the island," said Tanya Harris, first secretary for the Micronesian Embassy in Washington. "They never had to pay bills in Micronesia. They had no concept. There are a lot of cases where they are promised one thing and when they get here it's something else."

Almost without exception, the islanders complained that they had been misled by promises of attending nursing school in the United States and the chance to find well-paid jobs.

"They say you go to college," said Chaniel. The Chuuk resident was one of the students who signed a contract with Medical Placement Services that promised a free ticket to the United States and a job at a facility of the company's choosing.

But first, as stipulated by the contract, she had to pay $200 and complete the training and orientation offered by Hebel.

On March 17, 2000, she was awarded a certificate that said she had "successfully completed the nursing assistant training course." It was signed by Finn and Hebel, who identified himself as a registered nurse, though he acknowledged in an interview that his credentials are not recognized in the United States.

That month, Chaniel went to the Chuuk Department of Public Safety to obtain an additional certification - that she had no criminal record, a requirement to come to the United States. On the form, filled out for her by Medical Placement, was her expected occupation for the next few years: "NURSING SCHOOL, USA."

'An inadequate job'

Muller insisted that he tells all his recruits exactly what they will be doing in the United States.

But he acknowledged that Kristina Stege, first secretary of the Marshall Islands Embassy in Washington, had concluded just the opposite after a visit to Denton during which workers complained vociferously.

In a six-page report, Stege wrote: "At best, [Muller's] orientation program does an inadequate job of preparing recruits for life as a certified nursing assistant. At worst, the orientation misleads recruits about what to expect.

"Fewer still understood the work they would be doing," the report states. "Whether misleading or not, the orientation session clearly does not begin to prepare the recruits for the huge lifestyle change ahead."

While the Stege report has not stopped trafficking, one result has been an investigation of Muller for alleged conflict of interest, according to Marshall Islands officials.

"It's government policy that you don't do private work on government time," said Sen. John Silk, a member of the country's Congress and Cabinet.

Asked about the Stege report, DeMichele said: "They [recruits] all signed an agreement. Come on. Why would we mislead people? They have to read the contract and sign it before they come over here.

"I take great pride in my program - they have no opportunities over there, by and large," he said. "As far as mistreatment, I know of none."

DeMichele said many nursing homes are pleased with the service he offers and that Aston Park in Asheville, N.C., has been using Micronesian and Marshallese health aides for about five years, dating to the days when he worked for Finn.

"We've had a lot of success," said Karen Young, director of nursing at Aston Park, due in part to efforts made by the nursing home.

"When they [recruits] first come over, we find them housing, ... rent them apartments for the first six months," she said. "We put the lease and utilities in the name of the nursing home. After six months, they can keep it or go out on their own.

"When they first get here, we give them a few hundred dollars to get things they couldn't bring over with them. We help them, especially the first three or four weeks."

Training classes

In Denton, some of the arriving islanders, including those with a certificate from Hebel's course, were clearly not ready to pass a test that would qualify them as certified nursing assistants, a requirement of state law. Maryland health officials, after an inspection of the Denton facility last year, began raising questions about the qualifications of the new arrivals.

Their tenuous grasp of English compounded the problem.

Eventually, after intervention by Stege, language and other training classes were organized to acclimate the workers to life in the United States.

Some of the Denton workers were dispatched to Powder Springs, Ga., west of Atlanta, to take a special prep course and a subsequent test that would qualify them to work as certified nursing assistants. Two licensed practical nurses - Louisa Mensah and Janet Hughes - operate a business, LouJan LLC, in the small town of 6,000 that has become a magnet for Pacific islanders seeking a license.

"Yes, we train them," Mensah said. "We've had a couple dozen students so far. They have some education before they come here. Some have gone to college.

"They all know English," she insisted.

The test was administered by another Powder Springs enterprise, Walton Nursing Consultant Services. By all accounts, virtually everyone who takes the test at Walton passes. Interviews with recruits and nursing home operators show that trainees who had flunked certification tests in states such as New York, Florida and Maryland qualified when sent to Georgia.

Deborah Walton, owner of the company, declined to comment when asked about her firm's involvement in the certification process. Georgia officials said state tests are based on federal standards and that they did not find it remarkable that many Micronesians and Marshallese sought certification there. They come to Georgia "by tradition," said Katherine Shoemaker, who oversees the state's training programs.

But Finn said there is another reason: The tests are easier.

Stege reached the same conclusion in her report on the recruiting business, calling the Georgia test "less stringent."

DeMichele said he pays $1,800 to train and test islanders he recruits, a process that typically includes sending them to Powder Springs.

Fees and promises

Bencivenga, who supplied workers to amusement parks and fast-food restaurants, charged those businesses around $1,400. Papers filed as part of Bencivenga's divorce case in September 1999 show that in addition to his regular fee, he was advanced $96,409 as "extraordinary cash deposits from SeaWorld to purchase airline tickets for recruits to fly to Orlando from Pohnpei."

He said it was a one-time arrangement affecting 200 recruits and that for his other recruits he paid the airfare out of his fee. While the typical one-way airfare is $1,500, Bencivenga said he was able to negotiate reduced fares at one-third the cost.

A tall man with longish hair, Bencivenga got into the business in 1998, when he arranged to supply workers to SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Universal Studios and corporate-owned McDonald's restaurants in Central Florida.

A standard contract that his partner, Yamada, executed with workers required them to pay North Pacific a $200 fee up front for job placement. The contract gave the firm "exclusive rights to negotiate and secure employment on behalf of client for a period of one year from the date of entry to the United States."

Workers also signed a $1,500 promissory note empowering North Pacific to enter a judgment for that amount, plus 1 percent per month if they walk off the job or otherwise breach the contract. Recruits also authorized Bencivenga to deduct $85 to $95 weekly "to cover client's housing, transportation, health and welfare, and other expenses" and to levy a $25 weekly service charge.

The contract raised the strong possibility that North Pacific would help pay for recruits' airfare home, which many took as a promise: "It is anticipated but not guaranteed that [North Pacific] will accumulate $500 by the end of the employment contract for use toward the purchase of a ticket for the client to fly from Orlando to Micronesia."

However, when the contracts expired and some workers clamored to go home, Bencivenga said he didn't have the money.

Bencivenga, with his girlfriend Renselina Augustine - one of his recruits - operates a commissary of sorts in one of the apartment complexes where he houses workers in Orlando. On sale are canned meat, noodles, toiletries, cigarettes and, until a few months ago, beer at $20 per 12-pack, according to its patrons. A small can of sausages costs $1.25, a tin of tuna $1.25. A pouch of chewing tobacco or a pack of cigarettes costs $3.50.

Bencivenga called the enterprise a "co-op," saying: "You can't really have a store in a residential complex." He says he doesn't make a profit on this branch of his business.

He spoke in an apartment he had converted into an office in the Orlando complex where he houses his recruits. A fan struggled to compensate for the lack of air conditioning. Papers were strewn about the floor. A switchboard in the closet controls workers' outgoing phone calls.

His partner in Micronesia, Hubert Yamada, is a well-known figure on the island of Pohnpei, where he is the former director of the Social Security Administration. He runs North Pacific's Micronesian operation out of a small, sparsely stocked convenience store on a hill in Kolonia, the main town.

From 1998 to 2001, North Pacific imported about 700 Micronesians, Yamada said during an interview in a Japanese restaurant next to his store, where he spoke softly and sipped tea.

Many of the original recruits came from among a circle of friends, including Olfer "Oliver" Repid, who once ran a warehouse for him. "They were like brothers," said Repid's wife, Malinda Daniel.

But the friendship soured when Repid and his wife found themselves clearing as little as $50 a week after deductions - too little to live on - and Bencivenga sued them for breach of contract when they tried to extricate themselves.

"He used people like slaves," Repid said. "If I saw Yamada again, I don't know what I'd say," he said, his voice growing soft. "Maybe if I saw him, if I had a gun, I would kill him."

Yamada said his business practices are fair and that he loses money each time a recruit leaves the program prematurely.

"This is a business for us," Yamada said. "We do not get in it to lose money."

Fingers of blame

These days, Bencivenga's business is under stress. His contracts with the amusement parks and McDonald's have been terminated and his Micronesian work force has shrunk from 200 to about 90. It is up to the workers to find their own jobs.

Bencivenga and Yamada blamed fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks, saying that attendance at amusement parks declined, leading to reduced hours for workers and dwindling demand for new ones.

"We have experienced a loss of money," Yamada said.

The president of SeaWorld, Victor G. Abbey, disputed the recruiters' account, saying the decision to end the relationship with North Pacific was made well before Sept. 11 and was not related to the terrorist attacks.

While things appeared to be working well when the arrangement with North Pacific began, he said, complaints from the workers about transportation, health care and other issues began to surface a year later. So, the park decided not to deal with intermediaries.

"In general ... we weren't sensitive enough to cultural differences," Abbey said of the problems the Micronesians encountered. "They're shy. It's not in their nature to complain."

Asked what SeaWorld did to ensure that the Micronesians were not being abused, SeaWorld's vice president, David L. Hammer, said: "Not enough. Did we monitor them enough? Apparently, some folks did not have a good experience."

Universal's vice president, Richard S. Larson, said that while reports on the Micronesian workers were good initially, tardiness problems surfaced about six months later. He said there also were delays when Universal asked Bencivenga to replace unsatisfactory workers.

Bencivenga is quick to blame his recruits for some of his problems, accusing them of drinking too much, "dismantling smoke alarms, gumming up garbage disposals."

"We had a big-screen TV, but it was stolen," Bencivenga said. "Micronesians don't need a lot to keep themselves entertained. They'll play bingo all night. They do like to sleep a lot."

"Some [workers] thought they would just have fun out there," said Yamada, "that it was a vacation package."

Treated 'like slaves'

North Pacific's close control of workers' lives differentiates it from competitors, whose direct oversight wanes once workers are placed in nursing homes. Their main concern is that they might lose money when workers are fired or leave their jobs before fulfilling contracts.

The contract Finn signed with the Knoxville, Iowa, home required him to replace, at no fee, any worker who left during the first six months of employment.

Massey blamed nursing homes for the early departures, which occur frequently despite the damages clause in contracts. When workers disappear, it is not always easy to track them down or to collect money from them.

Nursing homes "treat them like slaves," Massey said. "Give me a break. ... You're surprised when they run away?"

Her partner agreed that runaways were a problem. "They run off," said Hebel. "We lost a lot of money through that behavior.

"The main problem is, the sense of responsibility is not there," said Hebel, a short, stocky man who now oversees a child-immunization program at Pohnpei State Hospital on the outskirts of Kolonia.

"They need some mentoring," Hebel said of his recruits. "They are disconnected from all support systems. They're by themselves. This causes a little problem. The U.S. is different from Micronesia."

He discounted the possibility that workers left because they had been misled.

"As a Micronesian, I say we do what we say," Hebel said. "Other people make promises and don't keep them."

One worker who left was Karen Lalita, recruited by Muller in the Marshall Islands. This year, she was observed hard at work at the Caroline home in Denton, lifting a patient from his bed and cleaning his room. A day later she was gone.

Like the other recruits, she had signed a two-year contract but left before fulfilling it. Co-workers said Lalita told them she was going to Nevada to be with friends and relatives.

Some nursing home operators who contract with the brokers regard the runaways with equanimity.

Taylor, the Easton nursing home administrator, said some of the Micronesian workers she employed had "jumped ship," but a dozen remained.

She said she had spent considerable time assisting them in adapting to life in the United States, calling the remaining workers "loyal, dependable, hardworking and honest."

"I've had a positive experience with the program" and recommended it to other homes, Taylor said.

Others were so disappointed that they went to court.

One home that took that course - Five Oaks Nursing Center in Concord, N.C. - won a $13,000 default judgment with interest against Medical Placement Services.

John W. Falkenbury, Five Oaks' owner, said he had contracted with Finn for eight workers, paying a fee of $4,500 each. There were serious disciplinary problems, such as not showing up for work or completing assignments, he said, and eventually they left. Finn's company breached its contract by replacing "only two or three," said Falkenbury.

"The unfortunate thing is that there really is a need for these workers," Falkenbury said. "We just have to figure out how to do it right."

A bitter cup of tea

Finn, who started the business of importing Pacific islanders, said he is no longer bringing in people to work as nursing assistants. Now, he brings in registered nurses from the Philippines, who need a green card.

"It wasn't my cup of tea," he said during a recent interview in his office in Bonita Springs, Fla.

One of his businesses, Medical Placement Services, was dissolved in 2000. A second, Guardian Solutions, declared bankruptcy this year, at the same time Finn declared personal bankruptcy.

He accused his former attorney, David Mourick, of trying "to steal my company."

"He forced me to go bankrupt," said Finn. "My former employees did everything to try to get back at me."

Finn filed a criminal complaint against Mourick two years ago, alleging that the attorney pirated his business and staff while he was on a recruiting trip in the Philippines. But the case was abruptly dropped by the state's attorney's office in Naples after the former employees were interviewed by investigators and signed sworn statements contradicting Finn's claims.

The statements described the nursing assistants program as "a mess," with nursing homes threatening to sue because promised workers had either never been delivered or had left and not been replaced as required under their contracts with Finn.

"The nursing assistant program was becoming a nightmare," wrote former employee Patricia L. Thompson.

"The entire program could be likened to a pyramid scheme," Mourick swore in his statement. "Guardian Solutions would enter into a contract to provide a large number of CNAs [certified nursing assistants], get an initial payment of one-half the contract, deliver a few CNAs and then move on to the next client."

"Ridiculous," retorted Finn, who accused his former employees of lying.

He said that while the Micronesian program had started out well, it soon deteriorated.

"They started bringing over anybody they could find," he said. "Some didn't have qualifications. They get here and suddenly they take off. They just go and disappear."

"Now," Finn said, "most nursing home operators wouldn't take Micronesians if you gave them away."

A few problems

A few miles away in Naples, Finn's former employee, Dennis DeMichele, told a more upbeat story.

He talked about the orders for nursing assistants he has received in recent months from North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Some came from longtime customers, he said.

But he conceded that there have been problems, including a nursing home administrator in Rhinebeck, N.Y., who told him that if he didn't move his recruits out, she would ship them to his home in Naples. He ended up reassigning them to a nursing home in Florida.

Another recruit ran away from her assignment to live with other Marshallese who have migrated on their own to Springdale, Ark., where many work for Tyson Foods.

The escapee was none other than Joann Jack, sister of DeMichele's partner, Larry Muller.

"And, boy," said DeMichele, "did I chew him out over that."

The 'body brokers'

A few recruiters lure impoverished and poorly educated workers from Micronesia to the United States with promises of nursing school and high-paying jobs.

Donald Finn, Naples, FIa., founder and owner of Guardian Solutions and Medical Placement Services.

Clients: Nursing homes. Finn, believed to be the first to recruit Micronesians, has placed hundreds of foreign workers in health care facilities in the United States. Former employees and consultants include Dennis DeMichele, Johnny Hebel and Cathy Massey.

Finn filed for personal bankruptcy this year. Guardian Solutions filed for bankruptcy at the same time. Finn closed Medical Placement Services two years ago, stranding Micronesian recruits throughout the United States.

Larry Muller, Marshall Islands, and Dennis DeMichele of DeMichele et al. Inc., Naples, Fla., recruit from the Marshall Islands.

Clients: Nursing homes pay a $5,500 fee per certified nursing assistant. Contract includes a promissory note signed by the recruit, which is due immediately if the worker leaves before the end of the two-year assignment. Parents are often required to co-sign. Muller is a full-time employee of the Marshall Islands government. DeMichele, a former employee of two recruiting companies owned by Donald Finn, Medical Placement Services and Guardian Solutions, filed for bankruptcy in 1998.

Johnny Hebel, Micronesia, and Cathy Massey of J/C Placement Services, Dallas, Ga., recruit from Micronesia.

Clients: Nursing homes pay $5,500 per certified nursing assistant. State of Pohnpei pays about $250 per worker through Workforce Investment Act funding. Hebel and Massey were affiliated with Finn. Hebel works for the Micronesian government. Massey filed for personal bankruptcy in 1998.

Hubert Yamada, Micronesia, and David Bencivenga of North Pacific Trading Co., Kissimmee, Fla., recruit from Micronesia.

Clients: Amusement parks and restaurants pay fees of $1,400 per worker. North Pacific leases apartments and rents them to workers at a markup and deducts from their pay for insurance and other services. One-year contracts and promissory notes lock in workers. The company has sued workers who leave before contracts are fulfilled. Yamada, a former Micronesian official, met Bencivenga while the Florida actuary was working as a consultant for the Marshall Islands government.

Legally trapped

An internal Immigration and Naturalization Service memorandum says contracts forcing recruits to pay damages if they walk off the job may violate the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. The document cited two clauses that prohibit workers from being held in "debt bondage" and "involuntary servitude."

Contract for Medical Placement Services Inc.

(sample of text)

From the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000

Debt Bondage: The term "debt bondage" means the status or condition of a debtor arising from a pledge by the debtor of his or her personal services or of those of a person under his or her control as a security for debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied toward the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined.

Involuntary Servitude: The term "lnvoluntary servitude' includes a condition of servitude induced by means of -

(A) Any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that, if the person did not enter into or continue in such condition, that person or another person would suffer serious harm or physical restraint; or (B) The abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.