In 1996, the defendants Marie and Willie Pompee and their son, Willie, Jr., took a 9-year old Haitian girl from her home in Haiti, where she had been living in poverty, and brought her to live in their new home in a gated community in Florida. The girl was forced to do the household chores, forced to sleep on the floor, and overall was treated like a slave. She was also repeatedly raped by the defendant's son beginning when she was 9 years old. She was rescued in 1999, but charges were not brought against the defendants until 2004. Only Marie has been sentenced, Willie, and Willie, Jr., haev since fled to Haiti.