BY LARRY LEBOWITZ

A Florida farm labor contractor was resentenced to 15 years in prison Tuesday and ordered to forfeit $3 million worth of property for conspiring to hold Mexican workers in involuntary servitude.

Ramiro Ramos, who will be deported after serving his sentence, was convicted in 2002 in Fort Pierce along with a brother and a cousin. An appeals court ordered new sentencing hearings last year due to a sentencing computation technicality.

The Ramoses kept farmworkers at a ''filthy and overcrowded'' Lake Placid housing camp, making them work off $1,000 in smuggling fees by picking fruit for major growers. Prosecutors said the brothers threatened the farmworkers with violence if they left prematurely and beat a van driver and several of his employees to prevent them from taking workers away from the area.

His brother, Juan Ramos, will be sentenced May 3 by U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore.

Cousin Jose Ramos was released from prison last year.

On June 28, 2002, following a four-week trial, a jury found the brothers guilty of conspiring to hold workers in involuntary servitude and of harboring undocumented workers.

The jury also determined that real and personal property valued at more than $3 million was subject to forfeiture because it was used in furtherance of the conspiracy or was obtained as a result of the criminal enterprise.