Bolaji Bolarinwa, a Nigerian woman based in New Jersey, was sentenced to 45 months in prison for forced labor and other crimes related to her compulsory schemes to force two victims to do family labour and parenting at her home.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced this in a statement Friday, May 9, 2025.
Bolarinwa, 51, of Moorestown, was previously convicted of two counts of forced labor, one foreign charge for a foreign crime for financial gain, and a two-week trial in Camden Federal Court by U.S. District Court Judge Karen M. Williams. Judge Williams sentenced the judgment today in Camden federal court.
From December 2015 to October 2016, Bolarinwa (originally from Nigeria but resides in New Jersey as a U.S. citizen) recruited two victims to come to the U.S. and then carried out family labor and parenting services to the children through physical injury, physical injury, quarantine, quarantine, quarantine, and continually infringement.
The defendant engaged in the act and knew that one of the victims had no legal immigration status while working at her home.
Once the first victim Arriving in the United States in December 2015, Bolarinwa confiscated her passport and forced her to work for nearly a year a day through physical harm, verbal abuse, isolation and constant surveillance to her and her daughter.
Bolarinwa then recruited a second victim to come to the United States with a student visa. When the second victim arrived in the United States in April 2016, Bolarinwa also seized her passport and forced her to perform homework and parenting, but was more dependent on physical abuse.
The two victims lived and worked at Bolarinwa’s home until October 2016 when the second victim informed a professor at his university who reported information to the FBI.
In addition to the prison period, Judge Williams sentenced Bolarinwa to three years of supervised release, fined $35,000, and ordered Bolarinwa to pay $87,518.72 in compensation to her victims of crimes.
“The defendant used her relationship with the victim to lure him to the United States,” said Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s civil rights division.
“The defendants seized the victims’ immigration documents and put them under threat, physical force and mental abuse to coerce them to work for a long time to perform a minimum salary. The prosecution should send a strong message that such forced labor will not tolerate our communities in our communities. Our communities do not tolerate our judiciary to make our federal trafficking regulations continuously promote human rights and make human rights a survivor’s rights a survivor’s rights and assume the right of survivors.”
“Today’s verdict proves the rights of two vulnerable women who have suffered hard time and forced sexual abuse in her home,” U.S. Attorney Alina Habba said in the New Jersey area. “Forced labour and trafficking are cruel crimes that have no status in our society. My post and the Ministry of Justice throughout are committed to working for vulnerable victims of trafficking and holding traffickers accountable.”
“Human nature is usually good. Although some situations prove that some people show more cruel and inhuman behavior,” said Terence G. Reilly, a proxy agent who is in charge of the FBI Newark Field Office. “Bolarinwa tempted women to take them with false promises, and forced them to clean her home and take care of her children. Then by abusing them, it further made this a sickly step. Fortunately, one of the victims had the courage to tell someone. We told anyone that we asked a strange situation, noticed something that was incorrect or felt good, so that we could help the victim to help the victim’s sight and see Plain.
U.S. Attorney Alina Habba, under the guidance of U.S. Terence G. Reilly in Newark, praised the FBI’s special agent and investigated what led to today’s verdict.
The case was prosecuted as part of the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the New Jersey Human Trafficking Task Force, which was established in 2025. The task force brings together the cooperation and dedication resources of federal and state agencies to combat trafficking and prosecute traffickers to endanger community safety.
The Human Trafficking Task Force consists of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigation, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of the Inspector General, the Internal Revenue Services and the Avant-garde Office of New Jersey.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Bender, a trial attorney for the Civil Rights Department of Human Trafficking Prosecutions Division.
