Some of the 44 Thai nationals believe Alec and Mike Sou of Aloun Farms did not treat them well after bringing them here and abandoned them after only five months of work.

"Alec and Mike might have had sweet dreams last night, but not us," Chakkree Sriphabun said, speaking through a Thai interpreter at a news conference Friday. "We had nightmares."

Ten of the laborers and their lawyers Melissa Vincenty and Clare Hanusz talked to reporters at a downtown conference room a day after Chief U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway granted the Justice Department civil rights prosecution’s request to drop forced-labor charges against the Sous.

The Sous and their lawyers maintained that the charges were wrongfully brought by the prosecution and that the Thai laborers had been treated fairly and well when they worked at the Kapolei-based farm in late 2004 and early 2005.

Vincenty said the men were "sincere, hard-working people" who never wavered in their accounts about mistreatment.

She said they also felt abandoned by the Sous, who didn’t provide them money to fly back to Thailand.

Sriphabun, 45, who was listed as a prosecution witness, said he paid $20,000 in recruitment fees, borrowing half from a bank and the other half from a recruiting company.

His family now faces the loss of ancestral lands that backed the loans and fears his mother back in Thailand might kill herself.

He said he could work his whole life back in Thailand and still not be able to pay off the loan.

"For us, being alive is still like being dead," he said.

Sriphabun and the others remain in the country under a nonimmigrant status. Sriphabun works as a masseur, while some others have farm and mechanic jobs.

The workers also said they weren’t fed breakfast and had to climb over a wall to leave a crowded two-story Waianae home that housed 44 of them.

Some were later ordered to live in metal containers at Aloun headquarters, they said.

"They did not do what they promised to do," said one worker who did not want to be identified by name.

"I would like the government to reconsider the case," he said.

The dismissal, however, ends the case because it was requested by the prosecution after the start of the trial.

Thomas Otake, Mike Sou’s lawyer, said the federal government did not extend the workers’ visas, which meant the farm could no longer employ them.

On the issue of paying the workers’ way back home, Otake said his understanding is that they were trying to find ways to remain in the United States and did not want to return home.

He said the cook and neighbors maintain the workers were properly fed and could come and leave the Waianae home as they pleased.

Vincenty said they are considering filing a lawsuit on behalf of the workers, but would not explain the legal theory or who would be sued.

Hawaii News Now video: Thai workers speak out about Aloun Farms case dismissal