Court case begins for man accused of beating, raping, psychologically torturing daughter

For more than a decade, a Honduran woman was beaten, raped and psychologically tortured by her father, a man who investigators and state prosecutors say eventually made his way to Miami then blackmailed his daughter into joining him.

During her voyage, the woman was smuggled across the border into Texas with the help of a “coyote” hired by her father. Once in Miami she moved in with her dad, where the beatings and torture continued. At least a dozen times, the woman told police, her father raped her and forced her to perform oral sex on him in a closet at the food distribution company in Allapattah where they both worked.

Finally, in February 2020 when her father was hospitalized after losing a finger in a meat saw accident, the woman escaped and made her way to a friend’s home in Virginia. She would later tell her story to a therapist in North Carolina, who advised her to call police.

Victor Hernan Majano Bejarano,43, was taken into custody last week and charged with a slew of felonies. If convicted of sexual battery with coercion and threats, labor trafficking, coercive human trafficking and incest, he could spend decades in prison or be deported back to Honduras.

Bejarano is scheduled to appear in Miami-Dade criminal court Wednesday, when a judge could decide if he poses enough of a threat to keep him jailed until his trial. A trial date has not been set yet. During a status hearing Monday, Assistant Miami-Dade Public Defender Andrea Wagner previewed her case to Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Christine Bandin.

“The state will not be able to meet its burden,” she told the judge. “We will learn my client has no criminal record and is not a flight risk.”

But Bejarano’s 10-page arrest warrant weaves a different perspective, providing lurid details of a lengthy grooming process, violence and mental abuse, even suggesting he’s a past member of a “multi-ethnic transnational criminal organization known as “Mara 18.”

Miami Police Detective Danny Estevez, a member of the Miami-Dade State Attorney Office’s Human Trafficking Task Force, wrote in Bejarano’s arrest warrant that he viewed video of the suspect asking his alleged victim for forgiveness and that he spoke with witnesses in Honduras who “confirmed the subject’s inappropriate behavior with the victim...”

Bejarano’s alleged victim, who isn’t named in public court documents, is now 29.

Horrific journey

Bejarano’s arresting documents tell the horrific tale of his daughter’s journey, which began in Honduras more than two decades ago when she was only 8 years old. By then, she told investigators, with her mother imprisoned and after a short stay with her grandmother, the girl was given to her father.

From the start, she told investigators, Bejarano touched her “inappropriately,” first over her clothing, then under it. By 11, he was raping her. He impregnated her at 17. The baby was aborted. She told law enforcement her father said their relationship was “normal” and a way for him to show her how much he “loved” her.

In 2018, Bejarano moved to Miami. He’s been here legally since, said state prosecutors. But once here, he became insanely jealous that his daughter was seeing other men, she told police. So, prosecutors contend Bejarano blackmailed his daughter into joining him with threats of injuring family members. He sent her videos saying as much.

The woman arrived in the United States in 2019 illegally after her father paid a “coyote,” or smuggler. During a three-week stay in Mexico, her father sent her one video in which he’s on his knees begging for her forgiveness. He tells his daughter “he fell in love with her and sees her as a woman.”

After arriving in Miami, the woman said, her father landed her a job at Amaro Foods Enterprises in Allapattah, where he worked. She earned $300 a week. Her father kept the money. But, she said, the beatings and rapes continued, often while at work.

It finally stopped on Valentine’s Day 2020, when Bejarano cut his hand badly on a saw at work and lost his left pinky finger. The woman told police that after visiting him in the hospital, she saw her chance and went back to their home and retrieved a key to the safe where he hid her passport. Then she walked to a nearby McDonald’s and called a friend in Virginia, before eventually making her way to North Carolina.

“The victim did not disclose the abuse until she met with her therapist in North Carolina, who advised her to notify police,” Estevez wrote.