CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y., June 27 (UPI) -- A wealthy immigrant from India was sentenced Friday to three years and four months in a U.S. prison for helping his wife enslave two Indonesian servants.
A federal judge said Mahender Sabhnani did not join his wife in punishing the two women physically, Newsday reported. But he said Sabhnani, who worked out of his home in Muttontown, an upscale Long Island suburb of New York, knew what his wife was doing and knew the women were in the country illegally.
"But he permitted all of these things to go on -- these dreadful things -- he had to know," said U.S. District Judge Arthur Spatt.
Varsha Sabhnani was sentenced Thursday to 11 years in prison and a $25,000 fine. During the trial, the two Indonesian women testified that she beat them, cut them with a knife and forced one to eat her own vomit.
Sabhnani faces a $12,500 fine and possible forfeiture of his house in Muttontown. Before sentencing, he pleaded for home confinement, saying that his three daughters, all in their 20s, still live at home and need a parent, while his son is about to start college.
