Back in May, I wrote a post about the Muttontown/Long Island couple who were accused of treating their Indonesian maids like “modern-day slaves”. It is time for an update (thanks, various tipsters):
A jury on Monday convicted a millionaire couple of enslaving two Indonesian women they brought to their mansion to work as housekeepers.
Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, and his wife, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 45, were each convicted of all charges in a 12-count federal indictment that included forced labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude, and harboring aliens. [MSNBC]
In addition to grueling 18-hour days, Samirah and Enung were “fortunate enough” to receive discipline and opportunities like those detailed below:
Allegations of abuse included beatings with brooms and umbrellas, slashings with knives, being made to repeatedly climb stairs and take freezing-cold showers as punishment for misdeeds that included sleeping late or stealing food from trash bins because they were poorly fed.
Samirah, the woman who fled the house in May, said she was forced to eat dozens of chili peppers and then was forced to eat her own vomit when she failed to digest the peppers, prosecutors said… [MSNBC]
This next bit is clearly a misinterpretation of actual events; I’m sure that Mrs. Sabhnani was merely trying to assist with hair removal. That’s quite thoughtful of her!
Enung testified that Samirah’s nude body once was covered in plastic wrapping tape on orders from Varsha Sabhnani, who then instructed Enung to rip it off. “When I pulled it off, she was screaming,” the housekeeper said through an interpreter before breaking down in tears on the witness stand. [MSNBC]
These disposable women should have been grateful that they were allowed to come to America, so that they could live in a mansion– and be stashed in a 3’x3′ space whenever visitors came, lest they embarrass their generous employers with their bruises and scars. If they hadn’t been so gluttonous as to sift through the trash for scraps, then they wouldn’t have been punished. Makes perfect sense…if you’re EVIL. But wait! There’s MORE!
The Sabhnanis’ defense attorneys contended the two women concocted the story of abuse as a way of escaping the house for more lucrative opportunities. [CNN]
You know, when I’m on the prowl for more lucrative opportunities, I always make sure that I rush in to a Dunkin’ Donuts with naught but a towel for a shirt and then fake abuse while pleading for help. Works every time.
They argued the housekeepers practiced witchcraft and may have abused themselves as part of an Indonesian self-mutilation ritual. They also said the couple went on frequent vacations that would have given the two women ample opportunity to flee. [MSNBC]
Obviously they didn’t practice witch stuff enough! I mean, if you don’t have the power to ingest 25 chili peppers like it ain’t no thang, well, you’re an embarrassment to your kind. Actually, it’s a good thing these witches were terrible at their craft; imagine what manner of wicked mischief they might have inflicted on their poor, persecuted, millionaire employers, had they had the time or energy provided by scraps of food from the garbage, to work on such things.
I didn’t think I could loathe these people more, but after reading that “strategy” put forth by their lawyers, I think I might. Then again, perhaps it’s heartless of us to blame this couple, when their greedy witch-employees just wanted to have some traditional, self-mutilatin’ fun? The Sabhnanis are the real victims here. I mean, look at this:
Varsha Sabhnani, 45, and one of her daughters collapsed in disbelief as the damning verdict was read – and were taken to a hospital for treatment. [NYDailyNews]
Maybe histrionics are like cooties? Contagious?
Defense attorney Jeffrey Hoffman said he would appeal. “Apparently, the jury was taken by the histrionics …” of the Indonesian women, he said. [CNN]
Here’s the best quote ever:
“We never did anything to anybody,” the Sabhnanis’ daughter Tina screamed. “How could this happen to us in America?” [NYDailyNews]
Yes, Tina. How COULD this happen, not just in America, but in your own home?
@aquafina, it is very pertinent that people concentrate on the indian-ness of the accused. it doesn’t matter if it is relevant or not, or whether there is any credence to it or not—a majority like to believe this profile of indians, and therefore it will stick. that is how humans function.
it is important for everyone who chooses to label her/himself as indian to realize this. it is naive to think otherwise, and you will set yourself in trouble if you expect more. you have to prove your innocence every time, assuming that you don’t have to is not a safe option.
i remember some other topic recently where another comment disagreed with this attitude—i respect the comment, but i don’t think that convinced me. i have had to put up with so many sneak accusations—as do many of you, i am sure, that it is not easy for me to be convinced otherwise.
@aquafina: never mind, i re-read your comment..
Nope, only the wife was. AFAIK, the kids we are all disappointed by were ABDs, just like a lot of us mutineers. I hope you’re not trying to turn this in to one of those cliched “look at the stoopid ABCD trying to put down our Great India and even greater Indianness” things.
Could you have been anymore sanctimonious, by the way? Ugh. It’s useless to bring up divorce cases and hard-to-prove charges when you’ve got maids with open cuts and marks from torture all over their body.
First of all, if we left out the Indian part, it wouldn’t be on this blog. Second, no matter what their race/creed/sexual orientation/political affiliation/milk vs dark chocolate preference, if ANYONE was convicted of these atrocious crimes, I’m fairly sure everyone who is currently disgusted would be just as theoretically disgusted. Third, who has time for a second read? This thread is long!
We went to visit some Indians in Charlotte, NC. They bought a brand new house w/ cathedral celings, 4 bedrooms, a backyard and 3-car garage for 300K
how much was ‘vandalized by KKK’ insurance?
Regarding those new links from Anna. While I was on the servants side all along, I was still a tiny bit skeptical of the “eating your own vomit” story. I thought it could have been a little lie to get back at some wretched people. Now reading those new links, I can believe anything said about these monsters. This family including the kids are one fucked up bunch of people.
I seem to find humor in anything. While I was feeling bad for these women, I still found plenty to laugh about while reading the articles. I laughed while reading in one of the linked articles how the manager found the indonensian odder than your typical donut customer.
I think the landscaper’s testimony pretty much ices things for these creatures.
I was still a tiny bit skeptical of the eating your own vomit story.
I heard they had to sit at the kids table and drink it with a sippy cup, and they dint even get one of those squiggly straws.
This has been unbelievable few days, first Roger Clemens take steroids, then rich people act callously towards people who aren’t as rich as them. What next.
Oh, how the standards have fallen! When I was little, threads could cross 500 and still not be half-way done. Now, less than 160 comments is considered long! 😀
I think Rachel Ray really needs to step up her game if she wants to stay on as Dunkin Donuts spokewsoman.
“This coffee is Fantabulous” really doesnt compare to “coffee that saved my life and jailed the maggots who did this to me, and it comes in decaf too!”
not to stray off topic, but I must defend my own! I grew up in the south and went to school up north.. and my southern friends are a much nicer, more liberal, open-minded bunch then the vast majority of new york/new jersey ABDs I know..
has anyone noticed when the sentencing is to take place?
I found Charlotte and Atlanta nice. I actually even thought about moving to this mountain town, Asheville NC. All the motels, gas stations and convenience stores in the I-85 corridor are Gujarati or Panjabi – but I don’t think any place in the US matches NY tristate area in terms of culture.
Where else can you get Jain-friendly, Indian style Chinese food?
“first Roger Clemens take steroids”
But he denied it; he wouldn’t lie…:):):):)
Ahh JGandhi – you’ve made me hungry now! Can’t wait to get home for that reason! 🙂 My friend was joking about checking out these people’s house/the area (she has a weird thing about pretending to be a P.I.), and I was actually frightened at the thought.
As for NY homes being older-looking, yeah, the siding is doing the house no favors, but did you notice how many freaking cars there were?? I think there are three garages, plus it looks like it has a lot of space inside. A lot of desi homeowners in the area are actually constructing homes (or renovating them) that look more California-/Mediterranean-style and some even Indian-style but which I don’t think fit into New England very well (not to mention the neighborhood)… there’s a way to do New England well, but the Sabhnanis’ house isn’t it.
That actually freaked me out a lot, just imagining it. It seems pretty obvious that the two women are mentally and emotionally traumatized as a result of their torture, who knows if they’ll ever get over it? After reading that, I find it hard to believe that they could’ve made up anything in their testimony, it just doesn’t seem like they either need a reason to or are even capable of thinking in such a way.
Just to clarify, it was the typical donut customer part that i found funny
“My mother thought they were millionaires until she realized they paid less for their house than a studio apt in a bad part of NY costs.”
LOL this is exactly what my mum thought of a cousins house in southern jersey when she saw it on a dvd, but now i’m living in NY and looking to buy soon, she gets it too.
I wonder if the manager was Bengali as most of the Dunkin donut employees around the NY metro are, if so great news. Two good feel factor desi news ( the story of the muslim guy helping the jewish guy on the train).
This family must have a screw loose to all just continue to inflict / observe all this cruelty. My family has maids back ‘home’ and they are certainly not treated badly, more like friends. I know my mum used to take make-up, clothes etc for them when going from uk to give as gifts.
shame on this family and hopefully their ‘ ooh i’m gonna faint,’ how can this happen to us ‘ acting won’t work. how cliche!!!
http://www.newsday.com/video/?slug=ny-bzslav1101-wn surveillance vid from dunkin donuts of one of the victims seeking help
There’s really not a lot of things in the tri-state area that you can’t find elsewhere.. you just have to know where to look. I’m not certain that this is Jain-friendly, but it sure is tasty. (Doraville is one of the many cities that makes up the metro Atlanta area).
it’s hard to find a good pho place in the tri-state area, according to many transplants from california.
try downtown, near city hall (center st, duane, reade, chambers,etc) and the courts. liite vietnam is there and it is cheap! almost makes me look forward to my next Arraingnment
Nala
Where in Queens do you live?
That’s not so prudent on these wide open, public internets.
Besides, requests for celebrity contact info may be deleted.
Has SepiaMutiny had/planning to have a NYC meetup?
We seem to be a large constituency.
I live here.
thanks, i’ll pass on the info. btw, do you know how to cook? if you did, that would make a great arrangement.
i find mystifying the need to purchase giant houses vastly beyond one’s needs. how does it go? this is the ant that bit the rat which ran in front of the cat which gave a loud yowl which woke up the dog that pulled on his leash which tripped the mailman who dropped the creditor note on the change in the interest rates that caused a default on the loan which led to the foreclosure that caused the owner to kill himself.
yes, i know – “families need room to grow” – but i feel this is more of a pissing contest.
JGandhi @ 160 wrote:
“I found Charlotte and Atlanta nice. I actually even thought about moving to this mountain town, Asheville NC. All the motels, gas stations and convenience stores in the I-85 corridor are Gujarati or Panjabi – but I don’t think any place in the US matches NY tristate area in terms of culture.
Where else can you get Jain-friendly, Indian style Chinese food?”
We actually, you can get it in Charlotte. As the saying goes: “Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.”
As bad as “vandalized by paranoid, chronically violent racial minority” insurance is in the inner city.
Dude, I went to high school in rural Virginia, about 30-45 minutes away from the border with West Virginia, and one of my girlfriends was a swarthy-skinned Hispanic. Not a single redneck thought that was strange. When I went to college a year later, it was only students from New York that thought it was a little weird.
So please, cut the crap about the South and racism. If there is any place where Indian immigrants who aren’t spankin’ rich, but who are hard-working people will be welcomed, it’s the South.
Just for good measure, if it is legally possible under the state’s legal code for sex crimes, the wife ought to be charged by the state with sexual assault for the naked plastic wrapping incident(s) after she gets out of prison.
As bad as “vandalized by paranoid, chronically violent racial minority”
Gee.. as if living in Macon,GA and Harlem or BedSty are the only two options in the world?
Not a single redneck thought that was strange. When I went to college a year later, it was only students from New York that thought it was a little weird.
Because the students from New York, saw her as a Hispanic or Latino women, your friends probably saw her as one of the gang with a tan.
So please, cut the crap about the South and racism.
I might as well cut the crap about reading history books too, they contain those dangerous things… ‘words’
When was the last time you cracked open a history book that didn’t have a K-12 grade number on it?
khoofia, I always look forward to your commentary ; )
Its not at all surprising. I have heard of many NRI desi families (even in Asia, many of them are Sindhi & punjabi traders), harassing their workers, not just maids but their also office staff. They get these workers from other asian countries like India, Philipines, Indonesia, pay them very low wages and carry the mentality that they own all these employees and they can do whatever they want to them. “We are paying them” is their excuse. I personally know of a few workers who were forced to quit (by harassing them everyday) so that they dont have to pay their settlement dues.
MikeT @ 176:
“As bad as “vandalized by paranoid, chronically violent racial minority” insurance is in the inner city.”
HMF’s generalization aside, equating the KKK with any racial minority is never a good idea.
“Not a single redneck thought that was strange. When I went to college a year later, it was only students from New York that thought it was a little weird. So please, cut the crap about the South and racism. If there is any place where Indian immigrants who aren’t spankin’ rich, but who are hard-working people will be welcomed, it’s the South.”
I’m glad that your personal experience involved very accepting “rednecks”, but without statistics, this remains a completely unfounded generalization, especially insofar as several people I know, including myself, have stories that contradict this vision.
When was the last time you cracked open a history book that didn’t have a K-12 grade number on it
Yes ter day
The ultimate irony is, you make a case for the south as this burgeoning fountain of acceptance, as the rednecks ‘didn’t care about your latina girl’ yet you make an unabashed statement about a ‘chronically violent minority’.. hmm who could that be, swedish jewish canadians?
That is true, but I like to think it is because I haven’t looked hard enough. Oh, pho, how I love you.
Charlotte is lovely, despite its de facto “whites only” and “mixed” bars. It’s a huge disservice to oneself to assume the entire South is filled with crazed hood-wearing terrorists. The South is becoming more and more diverse (e.g. Arkansas is opening a Mexican consulate given that it has the highest rate of Latino population growth in the U.S., there is a sizeable Japanese-American population in Charleston, Atlanta is blowing up with desis). It’s not just black and white anymore.
JGandhi, there was a NYC meetup just this past August. It would be nice to have another one. Not until after January 8th, though, because then I can go 🙂 I seem to have the unenviable talent of being on the wrong coast each time the mutiny hosts a meetup.
It’s a huge disservice to oneself to assume the entire South is filled with crazed hood-wearing terrorists.
True, but it’s also a huge disservice to ignore history, despite these outlying counterexamples. The south has traditionally had two things going for them:
Overtness about their racial prejudices. Not hiding it, some have argued this is actually better than veiling it (which is debatable)
Related to pt. 1, actually thinking their relationship w/Black America is “just fine” down there, and is indicative of ‘friendship between the races’ (eg the Southern Manifesto thesis brought to counteract Brown v. Board of Education) It’s exactly this thinking that has seeped through in comments like, “I dated a hispanic girl, and no one cared about it!” or John Rocker’s infamous, “Im not racist, I had 3 black people in my house.”
HMF, no one is saying that the South is not a place with historically gross racism. From that angle, we can certainly throw the tri-state area into the mix. I take issue with the idea that the South is backwards or somehow isolated in its racism. I just don’t think it helps any of us to make sweeping generalizations — either in the affirmative or negative. I’m not arguing for a pie-in-the-sky perspective, but a more nuanced understanding of populations and areas within the U.S.
HMF, no one is saying that the South is not a place with historically gross racism. From that angle, we can certainly throw the tri-state area into the mix.
I already highlighted the points that are southern specific. This is America after all, and as MLK said, racism is as native to it’s soul as is the mississippi. No one is saying that racism is not in NYC or NJ. I could be walking on 79th street and Park Ave and have people wonder why I’m not riding a bike with a bag of food attached to it, ready to deliver it.
In this never-ending debate of “where a minority would be better off?” I think it bifurcates for blacks and non-black minorities. Southern blacks have long entrenched communities and culture (ie churches – the one’s that managed to not be bombed, etc..) where as we do not, ours are traditionally further north.
Southern cities (Atlanta and Nashville being the ones I grew up with) have huge Indian communities. Nashville’s Gujarati Cultural Association (one of three major Gujarati organizations in the city, never mind the other organizations geared towards Indians of other backgrounds) even has a warehouse-sized community center and a regular schedule of plays and musical programs. Atlanta’s Indian population is even larger.
It’s unfair to assume that Indians living anywhere but NY/NJ or California are living on their own desert island in a sea of non-Indians..
Because the students from New York, saw her as a Hispanic or Latino women, your friends probably saw her as one of the gang with a tan.
That is an incredibly ugly assumption to make about a group of people you’ve never met.
It’s unfair to assume that Indians living anywhere but NY/NJ or California are living on their own desert island in a sea of non-Indians..
relatively speaking they are, but that’s a diversion within this large scale diversion. a simple look at the temples extant within these cities shows this, for example in the tri-state area, within south indian temples alone you a Venkateshwara temple, a srirangam-esque venkateshwara (pomona, ny) temple, and a guruvayur temple, are the main. (not to mention the myriad of north indian varieties, which Im not too familiar with) Not to mention the first Hindu temple in the US, in Flushing, Queens, NY, erected in 1970. as far as I know, temples in places like NC,SC,Missippi, Alabama are “Hindu” temples as they have to serve a wider range of peoples. In GA, I’m not sure. but it’s probably limited to Atlanta.
But this just a matter of geographical immigration patterns, nothing more. not really connected to the overt racism/unique perception of races (traditionally white-black) as practiced in the south.
If we believe, like I do, that G-d created us, the universe, the Sabhnanis, shouldn’t we blame G-d for the abuse inflicted upon the maids who, too, are His creation? We are bit players in His divine plan, I think.
ps – somehow my previous comment got deleted?
ugly to whom? the newyorkers or southerners?
Moderated. You have no commenting history, what you wrote sounded like trolling. It still does.
Back on topic, everyone. The “Is the South really racist?”-tangent is not germane.
I think the ugliness charge was to southerners, but it could be read either way. the point was, the northerners would be more likely to compartmentalize, where the southerners would be more likely to say “you’re one of us” – which, on the surface seems ok, but ultimately is just as bad, as it seeks to deny individuality and differences, or at least mitigate them to superficial things like dress/food/etc..
The “Is the South really racist?”-tangent is not germane.
However it is very German, but tangential.
SM-Intern : Thanks for responding. The reason I have no history is because I was introduced to this blog, by my sister, this morning. And, albeit, my comment is deliberate, trolling it’s not.
Was on digg today… http://gawker.com/335490/in-pictures-long-island-slaver-family-on-facebook
You’re welcome and welcome to SM.
Trolling can include posting a comment which is highly controversial, which will bait people in to responding, which often results in a flame war, but our commenting guidelines which we ban and delete to enforce would have been violated by that point.
Of course, there’s a Facebook group: “Lock up Varsha Mahender Sabhnani and Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani”
but wouldn’t the enlightened northern view pose a greater risk to individuality, since ethnicity means more than just “superficial things like dress/food/etc”, their view ends up “compartmentalizing” the Latino girl into particular beliefs by virtue of her ethnicity, thereby denying Latinos the diversity of opinion they have in reality and by virtue of being human.
this debate reminds me of a bobby jindal thread, where one columnist said he expected POC to have certain beliefs in common, and used believing in evolution over creationism, pro-choice over life as examples…raising the possibility that this person has yet to meet a black or Hispanic person in his life.
what i’m saying is northerners need to put down the rigoberta menchu for a moment and hit the copacobana. thursday nights are pretty good.