Escapee Sparked Sweatshop Raid : Labor: To report abuse, Thai worker risked deportation and defied threats.

The young Thai woman standing nervously by the bank of elevators on the 10th floor of the federal court building Thursday afternoon was hoping to get a glimpse of the defendants in a nearby courtroom, without getting too close. A wrong step could ruin her life.

She too had been captive in that sweatshop of horrors in El Monte, until she and a companion scaled the complex’s wall in a bold escape two years ago.

Now, still an illegal immigrant and working underground at another sewing factory in the area, she has more than just her residency status at stake. She was the informant who risked deportation and defied threats of violence against her family in Thailand to contact the Immigration and Naturalization Service in May, leading to last week’s raid.

A strike force of federal and state agents found dozens of Thai workers in the El Monte apartment compound Aug. 4, working under abusive conditions and confined by high walls topped with barbed wire.

Behind the shocking allegations that virtual slavery could exist in America’s back yard is the story of a courageous seamstress who came to Los Angeles in the summer of 1991 to pursue a dream, only to find herself living a nightmare.

Her employers forced her to work from 7 a.m. to midnight six days a week, doing piecework on a quota basis, she says. They yelled threats at her in the morning if she failed to complete her allotted assignment. None of her approximately 40 co-workers were allowed to leave the compound without an escort, and then only for Sunday trips to the grocery store.

“They told me that if I left the house somebody might rape me. I was very frightened,” she told The Times, speaking through a Thai interpreter in the courthouse cafeteria. “They said the bosses will go after my family and kill them all if I left without permission.”

Yet, at first, it had all seemed too wonderful to be true for “Jena,” the name she chose to conceal her real identity. She was at the courthouse with her companion, “Bee,” who joined her in her escape.

Four years ago, Jena and Bee were approached by a recruiter at their Bangkok sewing factory, told about work in America and promised that all the details--passports, visas, travel costs--would be taken care of for them.

All they had to do was assume a debt of 30,000 bhat, about $1,200, which they could pay back within a year by having part of their salary withheld. On the way to Los Angeles, they stopped in Hawaii for a two-day layover and were treated to two nights in a resort hotel.

“At that time we didn’t know what was going on,” said Bee. “I thought things were going to be very, very nice. The future seemed bright.”

After arriving at Los Angeles International Airport, they were taken directly to the workshop in El Monte, and put to work the next morning. The buzz of optimism wore off in about two weeks, when they realized the work was going to be unrelenting.

It was a family, they said, that ran the factory and held them captive. The father was Thai, the mother was Chinese, and they had five sons who rotated duties supervising their work. At any given time, at least three family members stayed at the house, keeping the workers under tight surveillance, the women said.

After a year Jena realized her pay was still being docked, even though she had paid off her loan by then. She learned through letters from home that her family in Thailand was not receiving all the $200 and $300 remittances she had asked her employers to send. She didn’t dare write them about her ordeal for fear of causing them worry.

After about two years the two women said they could not bear it any longer. When they heard of plans to put barbed wire along the compound wall, they decided to make a break. One chilly evening in 1993--they can’t be more specific about the date because they had lost track of time in the sweatshop--they scaled the wall. A kindly Korean neighbor offered to assist them.

Communicating in pidgin English, the neighbor helped them contact the Wat Thai Buddhist temple in North Hollywood, which the women had learned about by listening to Thai-language broadcasts on a radio in the compound. A taxi was called, and their anonymous Korean friend gave them $50 for the fare.

The monks at Wat Thai offered them sanctuary for a few days, then found them jobs in a Thai-owned sewing factory, where conditions were much more humane. They were too ashamed of their experience of indentured servitude to talk about it, they said.

Jena married a Thai national and the couple recently had a baby. Her husband was secure, with legal residency status. Her child was a citizen, born in the United States. But she was undocumented, living with the constant fear of deportation, especially as the level of anti-immigrant rhetoric grew during the last election.

That’s when she approached William Livingston, a Thai-speaking immigration attorney in Glendora, and started her application for legal residency status. There will be a long wait, because she has relatively low priority as the spouse of a green-card holder.

Then, in a telephone conversation a few days later with Livingston’s Thai wife, Jena fell to pieces, sobbing as she related the misery of her first two years in America. She told the Livingstons she felt she had to talk to the authorities and try to help the friends she left at that prison in El Monte.

With Livingston’s help, she contacted the INS and led investigators--after a random drive though El Monte streets she hardly recognized--to the apartment complex she had tried so hard to forget.

Livingston thinks his client has immunity from prosecution on immigration charges after cooperating with agents, but he said he can’t be entirely sure. The agency has a history of contradictions, and Jena will not be home safe until she has a little green card in her hand.

She has been following the case closely and noted that some of the people she believes responsible are still at large.

“I’m still frightened about my situation,” Jena said. “I’m still not legal here. And my former bosses, they’re not all in jail.”

* EARLY RELEASE: Many of those found at sweatshop may leave federal detention today. B1