Thread: Prosecutors Say Wealthy Residents Used Slave Labor

Prosecutors say wealthy residents used slave labor
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
July 1, 2009

Some of the Washington area's wealthiest residents hired illegal immigrant women who had been forced into what experts called human slavery by a Falls Church man, federal prosecutors said.

Over the last eight years, Soripada Lubis enticed at least 20 Indonesian women away from the employers who brought them to the United States and farmed the women out as domestic servants to households in Potomac and elsewhere, according to court documents filed in Alexandria's federal court.

Prosecutors say Lubis threatened the women and their families with violence if they disobeyed him, and held their passports so they couldn't flee.

The list of Lubis' 50 clients divulged in court filings by federal prosecutors includes a high-profile Washington attorney, multiple doctors -- among them a high-ranking doctor at a Maryland hospital -- and an engineer who invented an electric backup system for houses that use well water. No charges have been filed against the people who employed the women, and The Examiner has chosen not to release their names.

But prosecutors had tough words for the wealthy area homeowners who used the slave labor. "The various employers are also participants" in Lubis' scheme, prosecutors wrote. "They knew or were willfully blind to the fact that the victims were illegal aliens and that Lubis harbored them."

Lubis' actions amount to what human trafficking experts call modern-day slavery.

"Traffickers take advantage of desperation," said Mark Lagon, director of the Polaris Project and former head of the State Department's human trafficking office. "They take advantage of people in such flagrant ways that it's slavery."

Andrea Powell, director of Fair Fund, an advocacy group for human trafficking victims, said, "People are so desperate to come to the U.S. that they are willing to put up with all kinds of abuse, including slavery."

Several of the 20 women have helped authorities build their case against Lubis, who is expected to be sentenced to up to eight years later this month. His sentencing was originally slated for Wednesday, but was postponed. He has pleaded guilty to harboring illegal immigrants for commercial and financial gain.

At least four of the women have obtained special visas that allow victims of human trafficking to stay in the U.S., authorities said. Those four women still live with the Potomac employers who hired them from Lubis, the employers confirmed. One of the Potomac clients served as Lubis' funnel into the high society, prosecutors wrote in court documents. That woman employed one of Lubis' victims and then referred friends and neighbors to him.

Two of the clients told The Examiner that when Lubis first met with them, he said he had "papers" for the women whose work he was selling. On that premise, the clients said they hired the women who typically lived and worked in their home during the week. Authorities say the victims earned between $250 and $400 a week and worked 12-hour days, at least half of which was taken by Lubis in exchange for living in his Falls Church basement during the weekends. Two of the women have claimed he sexually abused them.

According to prosecutors, at least three of the clients were told by either Lubis or his wife to pay the women in cash only. In at least one case, an employer was told to pay in cash "because the women do not have documents and could not cash a check," prosecutors wrote.

fkopott@washingtonexaminer.com

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local ... 48112.html

Federal judge slams feds for not charging illegal immigrants' employers
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
August 14, 2009

A federal judge in Alexandria gave no prison time to a man convicted of harboring illegal immigrants for profit, saying prosecutors should have targeted the wealthy families in McLean and Potomac who employed the illegals he provided.

"This is why we have problems with illegal immigrants in this country," said U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee. "There is unequal enforcement of the laws, particularly when it comes to employers."

Prosecutors had argued that Soripada Lubis of Falls Church should face nearly five years in prison for harboring the 20 women who lived with him over eight years and not letting them leave. In court documents and in arguments made in court Thursday, prosecutors painted a picture of Lubis as abusive. Relying on statements from eight of the women, prosecutors said Lubis sexually abused two of them and threatened to kill their families if they fled.

But Lee said he didn't agree that the women had been victims of "human trafficking." The judge sentenced Lubis to three years of probation and required him to pay back $2,000 he took from two of the women.

Lubis pleaded guilty to harboring illegal immigrants for financial gain in February. Agents pulled eight women from his house in an October raid. The women, according to testimony, are still in the United States and have not been charged with breaking immigration laws. Some of them are still working for their employers and have received special visas for trafficking victims who testify in criminal cases.

Lee said he was "troubled by how in this case I'm being asked to send [Lubis] to prison when [the women] stayed with Miss [Ellen] Ottenstein, Miss [Jill] Martin and Miss [Brauna] Schwartz for five days a week and only weekends with you." In court documents, prosecutors listed 50 employers in McLean and Potomac who hired women from Lubis for domestic work.

Ottenstein said in court Thursday that she knew the woman she hired from Lubis was an illegal immigrant. The woman lived and worked at Ottenstein's house in Potomac for the past seven years. Ottenstein eventually helped the woman leave Lubis' house. Later, when Ottenstein learned of the charges pending against Lubis, she called the FBI to report her employee's case. Ottenstein said no one from the government expressed concern that she had acted outside the law.

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Related:
http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-939739.html#939739

Deport these illegal immigrants and their anchor babies!

Prosecutors say Lubis threatened the women and their families with violence if they disobeyed him, and held their passports so they couldn't flee.