LI housekeepers held as slaves, tortured

[Renew Deal]

Source: Newsday

A multimillionaire Muttontown couple, who run an international business distributing perfume, were arrested Tuesday by federal agents on charges of keeping two Indonesian women as slaves in their posh Long Island home for the last several years.

The couple, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 45, and her husband, Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, of 205 Coachman Place East, were accused of inflicting a catalog of tortures on one of the Indonesian women, while threatening to have the other one's family arrested in Indonesia if she did not obey orders, according to officials. The women had been hired as housekeepers.

The Sabhnanis were arraigned in U.S. District Court in Central Islip on charges under a federal anti-slavery statute of obtaining "the labor and services of another person by use of threats of serious physical harm to and physical restraint against that person."

"No one would ever think that human beings were being brought into the United States and held for slave labor, and beaten, and tortured in a beautiful mansion right here in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods on Long Island," said federal prosecutor Demetri Jones, who is prosecuting the case along with Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko.
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Read more: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-bzslav0516,0,1513272.story

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The slavemasters

[liberal N proud]

1. She just looks like a villain

I know better than to judge a book by it's cover but she just fits the part. He just looks like he is sorry they got caught.

[Renew Deal]

2. The NY Post cover is pretty funny

[Lone_Star_Dem]

9. Cruella is who I first thougth of when I saw the OP's pic

Obviously I wasn't alone.

[Sequoia]

4. Reminds me of Snow White's stepmother.

[givemebackmycountry]

3. OMG!

Is that Katherine Harris and John Bolton?
SHE is one evil, Cruella DeVille looking woman right there.
And HE don't look like any Fred Rogers either.

It just keeps on getting stranger and stranger...

[Gidney N Cloyd]

5. I'd like to see them do time just for distributing perfume.

[pansypoo53219]

6. had a similar case here

a Philippine couple held a fellow Philippine woman in basically slavery. no torture tho.

[yardwork]

7. This is the kind of crime that the Bush White House wants to stop U.S. attorneys from investigating

Read the entire article. In addition to being tortured,

"The women were forced to work 21 hours a day, from 4 a.m. to 1 a.m. "seven days a week," Jones and Lesko said. The only pay "Samirah" received was $100 a month sent to her daughter in Indonesia, court papers said. It could not be learned if "Nona" received any pay."

If the Bush White House had its way, wealthy "business people" like these would be protected even more than they are now, and U.S. attorneys would never prosecute cases like this. I would bet anything that these people are big Bush contributors.

[Solly Mack]

8. ....

"No one would ever think that human beings were being brought into the United States and held for slave labor, and beaten, and tortured...."

[NorthernSpy]

10. what do slaveholders deserve?

:nuke:

[Javaman]

11. Not the least bit surprised...

Having grown up in a town not far from that area, a lot of strange shit goes on in muttontown. Lots of recently rich with no class at all, inhabit that area.

Once known as the gold coast due to the wealth, it became known as the gold plated coast by the time I finally got out of there.