Michelle Rivera and my husband, James Rivera, worked for a guy who seemed decent. He owns a bunch of stores, but he screwed us over. He tried to pretend like we never worked for him. My husband did work under the table for him, and he has proof of all of it. The guy let us get whatever we wanted in the store. Then my husband tried to confront him due to the guy having illegal immigrants and trafficking humans. Two days later, we were accused of stealing when my husband has a video of the guy stealing. The man from India, who has his visa, said that his people don't do that, only Americans. So basically, we're accused of crimes that we did not commit.

Now we're having to come up with all this money. We've spent all our money and borrowed all the money we could. We're trying to figure everything out. We have five children, but one did die, and we have a child with autism and cystic fibrosis. We spoke to the lawyers, and they said we have a lot of evidence, but you never know. Obviously, it's going to cost even more money. It's just sad when you try to help somebody, and they screw you over like that, especially when you have all the proof and can prove everything. But the cop who did his initial investigation did not care. He said, "Well, it shows on camera this. I don't care what you have." We have the recording of that. He even tried to say, "Oh, well, if you plead guilty, I'll get all the charges dropped," which you cannot do because it's against the law. But at the end of the day, I think the guy is friends with the cop too.

The guy, his name is Paul, we realized he was so crooked. He's paying his employees $7 an hour under the table, puts them in barns, traffics them from Indiana, and he doesn't pay his taxes. He doesn't pay for things like he should. He takes stuff from different stores, like liquor, then takes it to a different store, which you're not allowed to do, and resells it. He also gets stuff from other Indians and sells their tobacco instead of going through the tobacco place. He also paid a 20-hour week check and wouldn't pay more than that, but I was working 40 hours. He wanted to do cash for the other part, and then whatever I wanted in the store, didn't matter what it was, he would just take it out of the check, the cash part, just like he did with my husband. We do have some of it written down and proof with screenshots, but you never know because of how the law works.

With our family and children, we're just really worried and scared, especially when you do nothing wrong and didn't do anything wrong. Now we have to come up with all this money and try to pay our bills too on top of that. We do work; it's just very, very hard. On top of that, my one daughter's medicine is like $20,000 a month, but we do get help with it. The other kids, the two twins, have a father who is a deadbeat and is not in their life. It all falls onto my husband.

Even with the cops, when they tried to come to the house and knock on the door, they tried to get me to plead guilty and say I did it, and they would get all the charges dropped, which is against the law for them to even do that. But obviously, I did not do that because I didn't do anything wrong. Now I'm in a financial burden where I have to take care of my family, and I really need help. I would never ask for help ever due to the fact I've always done everything on my own. Really, my husband does everything and pays for everything, but he's not able to do that. He only makes so much.

I feel bad because I know that's a lot of weight on his shoulders. He's been through a whole lot, mistreated as a child, and been through more than what most people have, even by losing his daughter, who died in his arms. But he always moved forward. Even our home is almost paid off. Most people can't say that, especially when they're 40 years old.