A federal grand jury in Seattle has charged longtime Vashon landscaper Jesus Ruiz Hernandez with more criminal violations of immigrant-smuggling laws.

In a new, expanded indictment filed on July 18, the grand jury also charged Ruiz Hernandez with money laundering.

The indictment says Ruiz Hernandez illegally harbored four undocumented adults for financial gain, some for several years. He’s also charged with illegally bringing one of the four into the U.S., and transporting another within the U.S. — again, for financial gain.

Those new charges are in addition to similar ones in previous indictments of Ruiz Hernandez, filed in November and March, that involve three other alleged victims. In the cases of two, he also faces more serious charges of forced labor — coercing them to work for his landscaping business.

For one female victim, that coercion allegedly included “repeated sexual assaults,” according to a court document.

Ruiz Hernandez’s lawyer, Gregory Hoover of Bellevue, did not return a call from The Beachcomber, requesting comment.

Emily Langlie, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said the four new victims were found March 30 during a dramatic early-morning law enforcement raid on Ruiz Hernandez’s Maury Island home and another home about a mile away.

That raid resulted in Ruiz Hernandez’s arrest. He has been in jail since. His trial is currently scheduled for Oct. 10.

He pleaded not guilty in March to the 10 previous counts, and was scheduled to be arraigned Thursday, July 27, on the 13 new ones, according to court records. All 23 counts are felonies, Langlie said.

She said she could not say whether still more charges might be filed against Ruiz Hernandez, or any others connected with the case.

The new, “superseding” indictment’s charges against Ruiz Hernandez include six counts of alleged money laundering — using business transactions and purchases of his home and another property on Cemetery Road to conceal and disguise proceeds from unlawful activity.

The landscaping business — first known as Brother’s Landscaping, then Brother Landscape Vashon — was used to facilitate the criminal offenses, the indictment says.

It charges that Ruiz Hernandez and others, including employees of the business, wired money from Vashon to Juarez, Mexico, “to promote the smuggling of victims from Mexico into the United States to be harbored” by Ruiz Hernandez “and to promote those victims’ forced labor for Brother’s Landscaping … “

The indictment lists nine separate wire transfers, each for $1,000, between 2017 and 2022.

It also charges Ruiz Hernandez, also known as Christo Jesus Escobar Solares, with unlawful possession of 50 rounds of 9mm Luger caliber ammunition at the time of his arrest. Federal law bars undocumented immigrants from possessing firearms or ammunition.

When Ruiz Hernandez was first indicted on three counts last November, he was released on bond pending trial after more than two dozen islanders — mostly clients of his landscaping business — sent letters and emails to the court vouching for him.

Some said they had known him for twenty years or more. They lauded his character, trustworthiness, work ethic and commitment to his large extended family.

“Jesus is an important part of our small community,” one wrote.

“In my opinion, we need more immigrants like Jesus,” another added.

But government court filings paint a different picture, particularly concerning a female alleged victim identified in documents only as “Adult Victim One,” or AV1. The indictment alleges that Ruiz Hernandez brought her to Vashon in 2017.

In a Nov. 20 filing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote that it expects the evidence at trial will show that Ruiz Hernandez recruited the woman “to come from Mexico to the United States to live with him. The Defendant told AV1 that she could earn money to send home to her children by working in a restaurant or cleaning houses.

“The Defendant arranged for a ‘coyote’ to assist AV1 in crossing the border without authorization and arranged for her to be transported to his home in Vashon Island, Washington,” the document continues.

“The evidence will further show that once AV1 arrived in the United States, the Defendant forced AV1 to work without pay in his landscaping business, and that he compelled AV1’s labor through physical and emotional violence, and repeated sexual assaults … “

Another government filing says that people who are now witnesses in the case helped the woman escape from Ruiz Hernandez’s home.