IndiaPost.com - Varsha Sabhnani sentenced to 11 years

NEW YORK: Varsha Sabhnani, 46, the Long Island, NY woman of Indian origin, who has been convicted along with her husband Mahender for forced labor, has been sentenced to 11 years imprisonment by a US District Court Judge on June 26. Mahender, 51, who is likely to receive a lesser sentence for not directly torturing the family's two Indonesian maids but encouraging his wife, wept in the court room as he watched his wife's punishment pronounced.

Sabhnani was convicted with her 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. 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 couldn't keep the peppers down, prosecutors said. Relatives of the two women back in Indonesia were reportedly paid about $100 a month, which amounted to less than 20 cents a day for hard labor. US District Judge Arthur Spatt called the testimony as "eye-opening, to say the least - that things like that go on in our country."

"In her arrogance, she treated Samirah and Enung (the two maids) as less than people," Assistant US Attorney Demetri Jones was quoted in local New York tabloids. "Justice for the victims: That's what the government is asking for," he said. 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 $25,000. Judge Spatt postponed a decision on the amount of back wages owed to the women.

Prosecutors suggested the women were due more than $1.1 million, while defense attorneys said the figure should be much lower. The couple also faces fines and could be forced to forfeit their home, which is valued at almost $2 million. Mahender Sabhnani ran a lucrative international perfume business out of a home office.

According to the New York Daily News, Defense attorney Jeffrey Hoffman said 175 letters were submitted to the court detailing Sabhnani's charitable acts around the world. He called her "a woman who spent a lifetime doing good deeds." Hoffman said that around 2004 or 2005, Sabhnani's weight plummeted from 325 pounds to 135.

"She did it by starving herself," and that resulted in a chemical imbalance and significant malnourishment. "She had become a very different person," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "I think it's very harsh (the sentencing). She has suffered dramatically." "I just want to say that I love my children very much," Varsha Sabhnani told the court as two of her grown children looked on. "I was brought to this Earth to help people who are in need."