New bribery claim in slave labor case
(AP)Updated: 2007-05-25 11:08
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. - A millionaire couple accused of keeping two Indonesian women as slaves were held in jail on Thursday amid new allegations that the women's relatives were threatened and offered bribes to make the case go away.
 Varsha Mahender Sabhnani of Long Island, N.Y., waits in a car at Nassau County police headquarters in Mineola, N.Y., after her arrest on forced labor charges Tuesday, May 15, 2007. [AP]  |
Varsha Mahender Sabhnani and her husband, Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, who operate a worldwide perfume business out of their Long Island home, pleaded not guilty at their arraignment on federal slavery charges.
Prosecutors have called the allegations "truly a case of modern-day slavery."
"The defendants operated a torture house," Assistant US Attorney Mark Lesko told the judge, who put the Sabhnanis' bail request on hold until a hearing May 30. "They are capable of acts of violence."
Lesko and Assistant US Attorney Demetri Jones announced new allegations that Varsha Sabhnani's mother, who lives in Indonesia, tried to bribe the son-in-law of one of the victims for the equivalent of $2,500. They also said they learned that Varsha Sabhnani earlier had threatened the other victim that she would have her husband, who still lives in Indonesia, arrested if she did not comply with her orders.
Defense lawyers, who have denied that the workers were abused or held against their will, were disappointed by the new allegations but said they would be "withdrawn or proven to be false."
"Obviously the allegations were upsetting, but at this point we're pretty confident," said Joseph Conway, an attorney for one of the Sabhnanis' daughters, Pooja, who works in the family business but is not charged with any crime.
The Sabhnanis were arrested last week after one of the servants, wearing only pants and a towel, was found wandering outside a doughnut shop in Syosset, on the region's so-called Gold Coast. Authorities concluded she escaped the Sabhnanis' home when she took out the trash.
Prosecutors said the women were beaten, scalded and forced to repeatedly climb stairs and take as many as 30 showers in three hours - all as punishment for perceived misdeeds. They said one was forced to eat 25 hot chili peppers at one time.
One of the women said that she was cut behind her ears with a pocket knife and that both slept on mats in the kitchen. They were fed so little, they claimed, that they stole food and hid it from their captors.
The women have since been cared for by Catholic Charities, according to a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In an indictment handed up Tuesday night, the Sabhnanis, US citizens originally from India, were charged with two counts of forced labor and two counts of harboring illegal residents. They were previously taken into custody on a federal complaint filed by ICE agents.
They each face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
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