Three housekeepers have now come forward to say they were exploited by the Caron family of Dickerson.

Janet Gonzalez of Washington, D.C., filed a civil lawsuit in federal court against James and Belinda Caron and their adult daughter Brittany Caron on Aug. 10, asserting that the family did not pay her or allow her to go home on weekends during the nearly five months she worked for them as a live-in housekeeper.

Lisa Wilkinson, 49, of Laurel said last week that she worked for the family as a live-in housekeeper for about six months starting in April 2008 but payments were infrequent and incomplete.

Maura Cerrano, 50, worked as the family's live-in housekeeper seven days a week for three months, sometimes as much as 15 hours a day, according to Sebastian Amar, a staff attorney at immigrant advocacy group Casa of Maryland. The Carons promised to give Cerrano $350 a week plus extra for working weekends, he said; the housekeeper was paid a total of $700 during her employment with the family.

A woman who answered the phone at the office of Dennis Ettlin, the Carons' attorney, declined to comment. Belinda Caron did not return a call for comment on her cell phone. James and Brittany Caron could not be reached for comment.

Pattern of mistreatment?

Wilkinson, a housekeeper for 25 years who left behind a roster of regular clients to work for the Carons, said last week that the family agreed to pay her $350 a week to work as a live-in maid but payments were sporadic.

"I was given a few dollars here and a few dollars there, but never the amount we agreed on," she said.

A member of the Caron family dropped Wilkinson off at a friend's house one day after she had been working for the Carons for about a month, but never returned to pick her up, Wilkinson said. She agreed to come back to work for the family several weeks later in hopes of getting the money she was owed.

"I thought that was the only way I could get any money at all and I was hoping things would change," said Wilkinson. "I gave up my cleaning business for her."

Belinda Caron, then a real estate agent, arranged for Wilkinson to stay in a house on Beallsville Road two miles away that she was selling for a client during most of the time that she worked for the family, Wilkinson said. In lieu of her back pay, the housekeeper was told she would not be charged a security deposit or first-month's rent she said. She was given a mattress and patio table for furniture, and another person was renting a room in the house during the time she lived there, Wilkinson said.

Belinda Caron reneged on a promise to help Wilkinson get her driver's license and the housekeeper walked four miles each way to buy groceries in Poolesville, Wilkinson said. Her former clients had moved on and she could no longer afford the room she was renting in Bethesda.

Belinda Caron deducted the cost of rent, electricity, trash removal, a cell phone and other utilities from the housekeeper's pay, and Wilkinson pocketed an average of $25 a week and sometimes less, she said. She later learned Caron was overcharging her for electricity by hundreds of dollars but was unable to verify the true cost of her other expenses, she said.

Wilkinson had been in the house about five months when Brittany Caron came to pick up a family cat Wilkinson had been caring for and told the housekeeper she had two days to get out, she said. A cell phone provided to her by the family was shut off and Wilkinson used spare change she had saved to turn her personal cell phone back and called a friend to get her, she said.

Gonzalez had two days off between Sept. 21 and Jan. 31 and worked more than 40 hours a week, her lawsuit states. She witnessed the Carons refusing to pay other workers who performed odd jobs for the family and threatening to have them arrested, according to the lawsuit.

Gonzalez lost all her property except for a week's worth of clothes she had brought with her because her landlord put her things in storage after Gonzalez was unable to afford rent and later left the country, the suit states.

Lawsuit details

Gonzalez's lawsuit claims violations of the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act, the Maryland Wage and Hour Law, the Maryland Wage Payment and Collection Law and the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act. It also cites a county law enacted in January 2009 that provides protections to domestic workers such as the right to a written contract. The lawsuit asks for about $14,000 in unpaid wages and overtime as well as interest, attorney fees and other relief.

Gonzalez filed a complaint with the county Office of Consumer Protection, the first under the domestic workers law, on Aug. 10 and an investigation is expected to be completed in 30 to 60 days, according to investigator Lorena Bailey. No other complaints had been filed as of Friday, she said.

A civil citation could be issued if investigators determine that a violation occurred, Bailey said. The consumer protection office cannot address the lawsuit's other allegations, such as lost wages, she said.

Wilkinson's claims will be incorporated into Gonzalez's lawsuit in the next several weeks, according to Nathaniel Norton of the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau, Wilkinson and Gonzalez's attorney. Cerrano also plans to join the lawsuit and might file a complaint with the consumer protection office, Amar said.

Representatives from the immigrant advocate group Casa of Maryland picked up Gonzalez from the Carons' home Jan. 31 and notified Montgomery County Police about her claims of unfair treatment in early February, according to police spokeswoman Lucille Baur. An investigation into potential human trafficking violations began Feb. 12 but Casa did not make Gonzalez available for an interview with police until April 9, she said.

The results of the police investigation were presented to federal immigration authorities and the county State's Attorney's Office but both declined to file charges, Baur said. The case did not meet federal standards for criminal human trafficking because Gonzalez was not locked in her room or the house and because her phone and computer access were restricted, but not totally prohibited. Gonzalez was advised to seek relief through the civil system and told how to pursue criminal charges for theft of services, she said.

The Carons "have a civil history of not paying employees," Baur wrote in an e-mail to The Gazette.

mtierney@gazette.net