December 19, 2007	Wednesday	Zilhaj 8, 1428

NEW YORK, Dec 18: A Long Island millionaire couple have been found guilty of forcing two Indonesian women to work as slaves in deplorable conditions in their New York mansion. They could face forty years in prison.

The Indian-born Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, and his wife,Indonesian-born Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 45, brought the two women from Indonesia to work as their housekeepers.

Mrs Sabhnani was nicknamed “Cruella” by the New York press. The two terrified maids referred to the couple as “master” or “missus”.

The maids, identified only as Samirah and Enung, were forced to work more than 18 hours a day, seven days a week, from 2002 to 2007, and subjected to repeated psychological and physical abuse.

The Sabhnanis, who have four children and ran an international perfume business from their Muttontown mansion in Long Island, were found guilty by a jury yesterday of 12 charges including forced labour, conspiracy, involuntary servitude and harbouring illegal immigrants.

They each face up to 40 years’ jail and plan to appeal.

The federal courtroom in Long Island, heard the abuse included beating the women with brooms, rolling pins and umbrellas, and slashing them with knives. The slaves were forced to sleep on mats in the kitchen.

In one incident, Mrs Sabhnani covered her manicured hands in plastic to protect her nails before attacking one of the women with a rolling pin.

They were made to repeatedly climb stairs and take freezing showers as punishment for oversleeping or stealing food from garbage bins because they were starving.One said she was made to eat 100 chilli peppers as a punishment. “I ate it and I threw up,” Samirah told the court last month. “The missus told me to eat my vomit.”