A millionaire who inflicted years of abuse on two Indonesian housekeepers held as virtual slaves in her suburban Long Island, New York, mansion was sentenced on Thursday to 11 years in prison.
Varsha Sabhnani, 46, who is also from Indonesia, was convicted with her Indian-born husband in December on a 12-count federal indictment that included forced labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude and harboring aliens.
The trial provided a glimpse into a growing US problem of domestic workers exploited in slave-like conditions.
PHOTO: AP
The victims testified that they were beaten with brooms and umbrellas, slashed with knives, and forced to climb stairs and take freezing showers as punishment. One victim was forced to eat dozens of chili peppers against her will, and then was forced to eat her own vomit when she could not keep the peppers down, prosecutors said.
US District Judge Arthur Spatt called the testimony “eye-opening, to say the least — that things like that go on in our country.”
“In her arrogance, she treated Samirah and Enung as less than people,” Assistant US Attorney Demetri Jones said. “Justice for the victims: That’s what the government is asking for.”
Federal sentencing guidelines had recommended a range of 12 to 15 years in prison for Sabhnani, who was identified as the one who inflicted the abuse. In addition to prison, she will serve three years’ probation and was fined US$25,000.
“I just want to say that I love my children very much,” the defendant told the court as two of her grown children looked on. “I was brought to this Earth to help people who are in need.”
Mahender Sabhnani, 51, who was free on bail while awaiting his own sentencing yesterday, wept as he watched his wife’s punishment pronounced.
He was charged with the same crimes because he allowed the conduct to take place and benefited from the work the women performed in his home, prosecutors said. He is expected to receive a much shorter prison term.
Prosecutors contended the accusations amounted to a “modern-day slavery” case. They said the maids were subjected to “punishment that escalated into a cruel form of torture,” which ended in May last year, when one of the women fled. She wandered into a doughnut shop wearing nothing but rags, and employees called police.
“This did not happen in the 1800s,” Assistant US Attorney Mark Lesko said during the trial. “This happened in the 21st century. This happened in Muttontown, New York.”
The women, whose relatives in Indonesia were paid about US$100 a month and who received to payment themselves — said they were tortured and beaten for sleeping late or stealing food from trash bins because they were poorly fed. Both women also said they were forced to sleep on mats in the kitchen.
Spatt postponed a decision on the amount of back wages owed to the women. Prosecutors suggested the women were due more than US$1.1 million, while defense attorneys said the figure should be much lower. The couple also face fines and could be forced to forfeit their home, which is valued at almost US$2 million. Mahender Sabhnani ran a lucrative international perfume business out of a home office.
One of the women arrived in the Sabhnanis’ Muttontown home in 2002; the second in 2005. Their passports and other travel documents were immediately confiscated by the Sabhnanis, the women testified.
The defense, which intends to appeal, contended the two women concocted the story as a way of escaping the house for more lucrative opportunities. They also argued the housekeepers practiced witchcraft and may have abused themselves as part of a self-mutilation ritual.
An uncrewed Chinese spacecraft has acquired imagery data covering all of Mars, including visuals of its south pole, after circling the planet more than 1,300 times since early last year, state media reported yesterday. The Tianwen-1 successfully reached the Red Planet in February last year on the country’s inaugural mission there. A robotic rover has since been deployed on the surface as an orbiter surveyed the planet from space. Among the images taken from space were China’s first photographs of the Martian south pole, where almost all of the planet’s water resources are locked. In 2018, an orbiting probe operated by the European
QUARANTINE SHORTENED: A new protocol detailing risk levels and local policy responses would be ‘more scientific and accurate,’ a health agency spokesman said China’s revised COVID-19 guidelines, which cut a quarantine requirement in half for inbound travelers, also create a standardized policy for mass testing and lockdowns when cases of the disease flare, showing that the country still has a zero-tolerance approach to the virus. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) solidified the position during a trip to Wuhan, where the pathogen first emerged in 2019, saying that China is capable of achieving a “final victory” over the virus. The “zero COVID-19” policy is the most effective and economic approach for the country, Xi said during the trip on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported. The first
A flight test of a hypersonic missile system in Hawaii on Wednesday ended in failure due to a problem that occurred after ignition, the US Department of Defense said, delivering a fresh blow to a program that has experienced stumbles. It did not provide details of what took place in the test, but said in an e-mailed statement that “the department remains confident that it is on track to field offensive and defensive hypersonic capabilities on target dates beginning in the early 2020s.” “An anomaly occurred following ignition of the test asset,” Pentagon spokesman US Navy Lieutenant Commander Tim Gorman said in
China is racing to quash a new COVID-19 flareup that risks spilling over into one of its most economically significant regions, raising the specter of disruptions that could roil global supply chains for solar panels, medicines and semiconductors. Infections have surged in Si County in the eastern province of Anhui, with officials reporting 287 cases for Sunday and nearly 1,000 since late last week. Authorities locked down Si and a neighboring county late last week to try and stop the virus from spreading to Jiangsu Province, the second-biggest contributor to China’s economic output and a globally important manufacturing hub for the