IndiaPost.com - Wealthy NRI couple tortured servants

India Post News Service

NEW YORK: In a case that horrified New Yorkers, an Indian American millionaire couple in Long Island has been arrested for "enslaving" and physically torturing two Indonesian women working as domestic help in their house for the last five years. Owners of Royal Image Perfume, Thirty-five year old Varsha Sabhnani and her husband Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani (51), are accused of slave-driving, beating and repeatedly torturing two Indonesian women identified in court documents as Samirah and Nona.

The couple looked remorseless as they were led out of court on May 17 after being slapped with a bail amount of $2.5 million and $1 million respectively by the District Court in Central Islip. The judge ordered the couple be kept under detention till the time that they post the bail amount. Bail conditions would include electronic monitoring and telephone monitoring, ordered the judge while rejecting the prosecution plea that the accused posed a risk of flight.

Assistant US Attorney Demetri Jones had sought that the Sabhnanis be detained without bail based on the severe and depraved nature of the offense, like physical and psychological torture and threats to compel the two women to serve as house slaves; their vast financial resources; and their presumed ties to their native country, India. The Muttontown, Long Island couple, who run a prosperous perfume business, lived in their $2.5 million two-storey house with their four children – Pooja (22), Tina (20), Dakshina (19) and Rahul (17). Prosecutors are now investigating if the Sabhnani children were in any way involved in the torture of the two Indonesian women. According to Jones, Mahender Sabhnani owns a trademarked popular perfume named "Royal Mirage", which he sells through several corporations, including Royal Mirage Corp., RTD International, Eternal Love Perfumes Corp., PVM International Corp., and Meena Arjan Corp.

The defendants control financial accounts which contain an approximate combined balance in excess of $1.8 million, according to Demetri. Bank records also showed that between June 2005 and October 2006, a bank account in the name of PVM International was involved in 242 wire transfers of funds totaling more than $17 million. Most of these funds, Demetri said, were deposits into PVM International originating from Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE. The Sabhnanis’ dark deeds came to light when on May 12, Samirah was found wandering outside a Dunkin Donut store in Syosset, wearing only pants and a towel. Store employees informed the police about the woman when she showed them a business card and repeatedly made slapping gestures uttering a single word that sounded like "master". Police immediately took Samirah to the hospital for treatment of obvious physical injuries to her face, arms, neck, chest, back, and cuts behind her ears, which were allegedly inflicted by Varsha with a pocket knife.

The various other injuries were determined to have been caused by beatings, scalding and burns, also inflicted by Varsha. The victim had managed to escape with her passport, which she said had been earlier confiscated by the Sabhnanis. ICE Special Agent William E. Brust, said he found that Samirah had entered the US from Indonesia on a B-1 visa as a domestic employee in February, 2002 and worked as a housekeeper for the Sabhnanis, along with another Indonesian woman, Nona, who was also similarly ill-treated. The two women revealed to investigators that they were promised a pay of about $200 per month, but in reality, were never paid that money directly. Samirah said, Varsha sent about $100 per month to her daughter in Indonesia.

The two women also told the investigating officers that they were never given sufficient amounts of food, and so they had to steal food and hide it from their employers. The Sabhnanis had confiscated the passports of the two women soon after they arrived in the US and Samirah was able to retrieve her passport only after its expiration date of May 30, 2006. Brust said in his affidavit to secure an arrest warrant against the Sabhnanis that on several occasions Varsha punished and caused pain and serious physical injuries to Samirah by beating her with a stick, throwing scalding hot water, forcing her to take as many as 30 showers in a row in a short period of time, forcing her to climb and descend a flight of stairs 150 times in a short period of time, and forcing her to eat a minimum of 25 extremely hot chili peppers at one time – all meted out as punishment for perceived misdeeds. Samirah and Nona told investigators that on several occasions Mahender Sabhnani had heard the beatings and known of the torture, but did nothing about it.

The visas of both women, as was admitted by the Sabhnanis to the police, had expired and they were being kept illegally. When ICE agents searched the Sabhnani residence, they found the second Indonesian woman hiding in a closet underneath a staircase. Apparently, the Sabhnanis had told them to hide in the basement or the garage whenever they had any visitor. The women were reportedly forced to work from 4 am to 1 am and were made to sleep on mats on the kitchen floor. Among the items with which Varsha is alleged to have beaten the women were a rolling pin, a bamboo stick and a broomstick. Investigations were conducted by officers of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) along with the Nassau County Police Department and Nassau County District Attorney’s Office.