Today's bully alert!

N.Y. millionaires guilty of 'modern-day slavery'

Convicted of forced labor of Indonesian women; could face 40-year sentences

Associated Press
updated 8:24 a.m. PT, Mon., Dec. 17, 2007

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. - A jury on Monday convicted a millionaire couple of enslaving two Indonesian women they brought to their mansion to work as housekeepers.

Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, and his wife, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 45, were each convicted of all charges in a 12-count federal indictment that included forced labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude, and harboring aliens.

Prosecutors said the women were subjected to repeated psychological and physical abuse and were forced to work 18 hours or more a day.

The Sabhnanis, who have four children and operate a worldwide perfume business out of their Muttontown home on Long Island's Gold Coast, could face up to 40 years in prison, although attorneys predicted the punishment would be considerably less. He is from India and she is from Indonesia, but both are naturalized U.S. citizens.

One of the couple's daughters collapsed in the front row as the verdict was read, prompting the judge to clear the courtroom while medical personnel attended to her.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Hoffman said he would appeal. "Apparently, the jury was taken by the histrionics ..." of the Indonesian women, he said.

Worked for $100 to $150 a month
Prosecutors called it a case of "modern-day slavery." Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko said in closing arguments the poorly educated women worked as housekeepers for $100 or $150 a month — all of which was sent to their relatives back home.

Lesko said the women, known only as Samirah and Enung, were subjected to "punishment that escalated into a cruel form of torture" that ended when one of the women fled on Mother's Day.

Allegations of abuse included beatings with brooms and umbrellas, slashings with knives, being made to repeatedly climb stairs and take freezing-cold showers as punishment for misdeeds that included sleeping late or stealing food from trash bins because they were poorly fed.

Samirah, the woman who fled the house in May, said she was forced to eat dozens of chili peppers and then was forced to eat her own vomit when she failed to digest the peppers, prosecutors said.

"This did not happen in the 1800s," Lesko said. "This happened in the 21st century."

Accusations of abuse
Enung testified that Samirah's nude body once was covered in plastic wrapping tape on orders from Varsha Sabhnani, who then instructed Enung to rip it off. "When I pulled it off, she was screaming," the housekeeper said through an interpreter before breaking down in tears on the witness stand.

The Sabhnanis' defense attorneys contended the two women concocted the story of abuse as a way of escaping the house for more lucrative opportunities. They argued the housekeepers practiced witchcraft and may have abused themselves as part of an Indonesian self-mutilation ritual. They also said the couple went on frequent vacations that would have given the two women ample opportunity to flee.

The Sabhnanis spent nearly three months in jail until a judge approved a bail package that required them to post $4.5 million and pay an estimated $10,000 a day for security monitoring while they were kept under house arrest.

There are times when people seriously puzzle me: How does a multi-millionaire couple, parents of four, rationalize this kind of de-valuing of human life? I realize neither of these terms, multi-millionaire and parent, are qualifiers for being civilized, sophisticated, and caring people, but to casually exhibit such base human cruelty is truly astonishing.

In the "an eye for an eye" department - What truly sucks is even if sentenced to the maximum jail term possible, their living conditions in prison will a) be better than those they tortured, and b)paid for in full by our tax dollars.

I am reminded of an idea Tim Carden, a friend of mine, had and posted in my blog a while back regarding life sentences in prison:

"...We lobby to change the life in prison laws, citing that it is inhuman to keep a person in prison for life with no change of getting out. That all of these prisoners are killed one year after their last appeal. Any prisoner that does what to live out their day in prison can register for life. Here is the part I like. Any and all of you crying for what is far, sad dumb assess can sponsor one of these register prisoner for a year at a time. The government will lift that tax burdened from me and give it to you. As long as some sad ass is paying for the prisoner, they live."