A woman has been found guilty of keeping an Indian maid in her upstate New York luxury mansion for five years while the maid was in the country illegally.
Annie George had said she didn’t know Valsamma Mathai (vahl-SAH‘-mah mah-TY‘) was in the United States illegally. She also said she didn’t mistreat Mathai during the 5 1/2 years she worked in her 20,000-square-foot home in suburban Rexford, near Albany.
Mathai testified she slept in a closet and worked long days without vacation, days off or sick time. She says she wasn’t allowed to leave the palatial stone mansion on a cliff overlooking the Mohawk River.
A federal jury handed down its decision Friday afternoon. It had been deliberating since Thursday afternoon.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP‘s earlier story is below.
A federal jury was set to resume deliberations in the case of a woman accused of cheating an Indian household servant out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in pay and keeping her a virtual prisoner at a mansion in upstate New York.
Jurors got the case Thursday after Annie George repeated her earlier testimony that she didn’t know Valsamma Mathai was in the United States illegally and she didn’t mistreat her during the 5½ years she worked in her 20,000-square-foot home in an Albany suburb.
Mathai testified earlier that she slept in a closet, worked long days without vacation, days off or sick time and wasn’t allowed to leave the property, a palatial stone mansion on a cliff overlooking the Mohawk River.
The case surfaced when Mathai’s son in India, Shiju, called the National Human Trafficking Resources Center in 2011.
George is charged with harboring an illegal immigrant for financial gain, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine upon conviction.
She repeatedly broke down in tears on the witness stand Wednesday, saying she was left in desperate financial straits when her husband died in 2009. She said she knew nothing of his business dealings, including the arrangement to have Mathai live with them, because he required her to stick to her duties as his wife and mother of their six children and severely …read more
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