UAE officer ordered to pay nanny $1M

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PROVIDENCE, R.I., Dec. 27 (UPI) -- A U.S. court has ordered a United Arab Emirates naval officer to pay more than $1 million to a housekeeper forced to work unpaid overtime.

Elizabeth Ballesteros, who is from the Philippines, testified she worked for Arif Mohamed Saeed Mohamed al-Ali for 12 weeks as a housekeeper and nanny for his five children, The Providence Journal reported. He was attending the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I., at the time and living in East Greenwich, R.I., with his family.

In a ruling this week, U.S. District Judge John McConnell found Ballesteros had worked 1,920 hours of unpaid overtime in 2010. He ordered al-Ali to pay $261,000 for breach of contract and an additional $840,000 as compensation for "outrageous, illegal and inhumane" conduct, a total of $1.1 million.

Al-Ali was acquitted in 2011 of human trafficking charges.