Woman details forced labor experience in Ashland couple's trial

By CHRIS COTELESSE

TheNewsOutlet.org

YOUNGSTOWN

A woman who prosecutors say was imprisoned by an Ashland couple testified in federal court here that her captors held her against her will by using violence, rape and humiliation.

They forced her to have sex, hit her with a wooden fence post and put her in a cage and forced her to eat dog food as punishment, the woman, identified in court papers as S.E., told the court Tuesday.

It was her second day of testimony in a labor-trafficking conspiracy and theft of government funds case against Jessica L. Hunt, 31, and Jordie L. Callahan, 26, both of Ashland.

It was the sixth day of the case being heard before Judge Benita Y. Pearson in Thomas D. Lambros U.S. Federal Building and Courthouse.

Federal prosecutors have accused the couple of imprisoning the mentally challenged woman and her 5-year-old daughter for more than two years while they spent the woman’s Social Security income and other government assistance.

The purported victim testified Monday and Tuesday that Hunt and Callahan locked her and her daughter in a cold, dark basement, where they slept on a dirty blanket on the floor. The two huddled together for warmth, but her daughter complained of cold and hunger, she said.

“Her face was pure white, and she had dark circles under her eyes because it was so cold,” she said.

S.E. said she was released from her confines every morning to perform housework and other tasks, but wasn’t allowed to eat or feed her daughter until she returned to the basement each night at 8 p.m.

Once she heard the lock “click,” she was in the basement for the remainder of the night without access to a bathroom, she said. She often soiled her clothes or emptied her bowels and bladder on the floor.

S.E. and her daughter once escaped from the basement, but Hunt convinced her to return by threatening to have S.E.’s daughter taken away by Child Protective Services. He offered her better accommodations in an upstairs bedroom, the woman testified.

Though the room was carpeted, the mother and child still slept on the floor and were denied access to a bathroom after 8 p.m.

She said she complied with the couple’s demands out of fear of physical violence, testifying that Hunt struck her in the back with a wooden fence post after S.E. took food from the kitchen to feed her hungry daughter.

Hunt and Callahan also coerced S.E. into roughly hitting her daughter and recorded the event to use as blackmail to persuade her into “following the rules,” S.E. said.

S.E. said the consequences for “breaking the rules” were severe, testifying that Callahan pointed a hunting rifle at her daughter’s head when S.E. “took too long” to come back from the store.

Humiliation was a common tool used to subdue the her, S.E. testified.

“If I do something bad, [Callahan] would put a dog collar around my neck and put me in the cage and make me eat dog food,” she said.

Abuse wasn’t only reserved for punishments, S.E. said. On four different occasions, Callahan forced her to have vaginal and oral sex.

“After I said ‘no’ he still did it,” she said. “He told me not to tell [Hunt]. He said, ‘She would kill you, and I would deny it and hurt you more.’”

S.E. and her daughter eventually escaped from Hunt’s and Callahan’s control Oct. 25, 2012.

She said Hunt had sent her to a local Dollar General to return some curtains. S.E. stole a candy bar and was caught by the store’s employees. When police officers arrived, S.E. asked them to take her to jail and to rescue her daughter from Hunt’s and Callahan’s home at 509 W. Main St.

“I just couldn’t take it anymore,” S.E. said.

While being questioned by police, Hunt and Callahan showed officers the video of S.E. beating her daughter. S.E. was picked up by police Oct. 25, 2012, the day after her daughter’s fifth birthday.

S.E. later pleaded guilty to child-endangerment charges and spent 98 days in jail. Her daughter was placed in foster care.

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