Jury reaches verdict in forced labor trial of Bolaji and Isiaka Bolarinwa of Moorestown

CAMDEN — A federal jury has convicted a Burlington County couple of coercing two women to provide housekeeping and childcare service.

Bolaji Bolarinwa, 50, and her husband, 67-year-old Isiaka Bolarinwa, were each found guilty of two counts of forced labor and one count of alien harboring for financial gain after a two-week trial in Camden federal court.

Bolaji Bolarinwa was also convicted on April 24 of two counts of document servitude.

The Moorestown couple were charged in February 2022 after allegedly coercing the women to be their servants from December 2015 through October 2016.

“Imagine showing up in a foreign land, hoping for a better life, and ending up trapped with no place to go and no one to turn to for help,” FBI Newark Special Agent in Charge James E. Dennehy said in a statement.

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According to court records and trial evidence, the couple recruited two women to come to the United States at different times. They confiscated the victims' passports, and coerced them through physical harm, threats, isolation and psychological abuse, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey.

The couple were aware that the women “were out of lawful status while working in their home,” the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.

The first victim arrived with her daughter in December 2015, and was coerced by Bolaji Bolarinwa “to work every day, around the clock for nearly a year,” the statement continues.

It says Isiaka Bolarinwa “was aware of his wife’s threats and abusive behavior toward the victim and directly benefited from the victim’s cooking, cleaning and childcare.”

A second victim came to the United States on a student visa in April 2016.

Both women lived and worked at the couple's home until October 2016, “when the second victim notified a professor at her college, who reported the information to the FBI," the statement says.

An attorney for Isiaka Bolarinwa declined to comment on the verdicts.

A lawyer for Bolaji Bolarinwa could not be reached.

.Jim Walsh is a senior reporter with the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Email: Jwalsh@cpsj.com.

This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Verdict follows two-week trial for Bolaji and Isiaka Bolarinwa