U.S. v. Sabhnani

• Decision Date: 06 July 2007
• Docket Number: Docket No. 07-2567-cr.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Mahender Murlidhar SABHNANI, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

493 F.3d 63

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Mahender Murlidhar SABHNANI, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, Defendants-Appellants.

Docket No. 07-2567-cr.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: June 26, 2007.

Decided: July 6, 2007.

Susan C. Wolfe, Hoffman & Pollok LLP (Jeffrey C. Hoffman, on the brief), New York, NY, for Defendant-Appellant Varsha Mahender Sabhnani.

Stephen P. Scaring, Scaring & Brissenden, PLLC, Garden City, NY, for Defendant-Appellant Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani.

Mark J. Lesko, Assistant United States Attorney (Peter A. Norling, Demetri Jones, Carrie Capwell, Assistant United States Attorneys, on the brief), for Roslynn R. Mauskopf, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NY, for Appellee.

Before: WINTER, JOSÉ A. CABRANES, and RAGGI, Circuit Judges.

REENA RAGGI, Circuit Judge.

Defendants Varsha Mahender Sabhnani and Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani appeal from permanent orders of detention entered pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3142(e) on June 11, 2007, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Thomas C. Platt, Judge). The Sabhnanis do not challenge the district court's finding that, if released, they pose a serious risk of flight. Rather, they challenge its conclusion that no conditions can be imposed that would reasonably assure their presence at trial. We generally accord considerable deference to such a district court conclusion. In this case, however, defendants' argument has been cast in a new light by the government's identification in this court of the further conditions it deems necessary to ameliorate the risk of flight. See Appendix to this Opinion.¹ The government's ability to identify such conditions and the defendants' willingness to accede to them preclude a conclusion in this case that no conditions of release would reasonably assure the defendants' presence at trial.² Accordingly, we vacate the challenged order of detention and remand this case to the district court so that the parties can provide the assurances and finalize the arrangements referenced in defendants' last proposed conditions of release, as now amended by the government, whereupon appropriate bail release orders should be executed by the district court.

I. Background

A. The Charges Against Defendants

Varsha Sabhnani and her husband Mahender Sabhnani are charged with two counts of forced labor, see 18 U.S.C. §§ 1589, 1594(a), and two counts of harboring illegal aliens, see 8 U.S.C. § 1324. The charges stem from allegations that, for the five-year period from 2002 to 2007, the defendants held two Indonesian women in peonage at their Long Island home, denying them freedom of movement, subjecting them to serious physical abuse, and paying them no wages for their domestic labor save for approximately $100 per month transmitted to relatives in Indonesia.

B. Defendants' Background

Defendant Varsha Sabhnani is herself a native of Indonesia. She has resided in the United States for more than twenty-five years and, in 2001, became an American citizen. Her husband Mahender Sabhnani is a native of India who has resided in this country for almost thirty-five years. He became an American citizen in 1980. Defendants' four children, ranging in age from 17 to 23, are all American citizens born in this country. These children continue to reside at the family home on Long Island where the charged crimes purportedly occurred. When defendants' three adult daughters were questioned by authorities about the circumstances giving rise to the pending charges against their parents, each invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Defendants' alleged procurement of forced domestic labor took place against a backdrop of significant wealth. For example, defendants own outright their Long Island home and a Manhattan apartment, properties having a total value in excess of $3 million. Their known cash and securities holdings total $3 to $5 million. Jewelry, stored in safety deposit boxes, is valued at approximately $500,000.

Defendants' wealth apparently derives from a perfume and cosmetics business, which manufactures its products in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Indonesia, and markets these products throughout the world, most particularly in the Middle East.

C. Events Leading to Defendants' Arrest

Defendants, who have no criminal records, first attracted law enforcement attention on May 13, 2007. Shortly after 6:00 a.m. on that day, employees of a Long Island donut shop called 911 to request assistance for a seemingly homeless woman. The woman, who was dressed only in pants and a towel, had used hand gestures and halting words to convey to shop employees that she had been struck repeatedly in the face by her "master." With the aid of an interpreter, federal and local authorities learned from the woman that she was a native of Indonesia who, since February 5, 2002, had worked as a domestic servant for the defendants. The woman explained that she received no direct payment for her labor; rather, defendants sent $100 per month to her daughter in Indonesia. Throughout her years of forced servitude, she was not permitted to leave the defendants' home, was forced to sleep on a floor mat, and rarely received adequate amounts of food. Moreover, she alleged that she experienced routine physical abuse at the hands of Varsha Sabhnani and with the knowledge of Mahender Sabhnani. This abuse purportedly included beatings with a stick, flesh cuts made with a small knife, and burns inflicted by throwing scalding water. Law enforcement officers observed — and subsequently photographed — dozens of scars and bruises on the woman's face, neck, back, chest, and arms, which she attributed to the described abuse. The woman advised the officers that another Indonesian woman was also then working at the defendants' home under similar forced conditions.

Based on this information, law enforcement officers executed a search warrant that same day at the defendants' home. There they found the second Indonesian woman hiding in a small closet, and they seized various items that appeared to corroborate the account of physical abuse. In response to questions posed by law enforcement officers, defendants admitted knowing that the two Indonesian women were illegally present in the United States.

The following day, May 14, defendants were arrested on forced labor charges.

D. Defendants' Detention

To explain our ruling on this appeal, we necessarily begin with a review of the extensive bail litigation in the district court.

1. The Magistrate Judge's Order of Release

The question of defendants' release pending trial was initially addressed by Magistrate Judge A. Kathleen Tomlinson. In a May 15 letter to Judge Tomlinson, the government requested an order of detention against both defendants, arguing that, if released, they would present a risk of flight and a danger to other persons, specifically their victims and members of the victims' families. Because the government does not here challenge the rejection of its danger argument by both Judge Tomlinson and Judge Platt, we do not discuss that issue further in this opinion.

With respect to flight, the government submitted that the defendants had a strong motive to flee the United States because the evidence of their guilt was compelling; and, upon conviction, they faced a significant term of incarceration, specifically, a statutory maximum of forty years' imprisonment and a Guidelines range of 210 to 262 months.³ The government further noted defendants' means and opportunity to flee, evidenced by their vast financial resources and their personal and professional contacts with numerous foreign countries. The government noted that, between June 2005 and October 2006, one of defendants' corporate bank accounts had received wire transfers totaling $17,241,902, most of these transfers originating from the Kingdom of Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, countries with which the United States did not have extradition treaties.

In a responsive letter dated May 17, 2007, defendants' counsel disputed the government's contention that their clients presented a serious risk of flight. Nevertheless, they submitted that release conditions could be imposed that reasonably ameliorated any such risk. Specifically, they proposed: (1) personal recognizance bonds of $1.5 million for each defendant, secured by the signature of six persons and by the entry of confessions of judgment against the defendants' Long Island home and Manhattan apartment; and (2) defendants' home detention at their Long Island residence, subject to (a) electronic monitoring of the defendants' persons by the court's Pre-Trial Services Office, (b) 24-hour per day electronic monitoring of defendants' residence by a private investigation firm (with the expense born by defendants), (c) pen register monitoring of defendants' telephone calls, and (d) surrender of defendants' passports.

At the bail hearing before Judge Tomlinson that same day, the government continued to urge defendants' detention, arguing that "[t]here is absolutely nothing to stop them from leaving this country and tak[ing] their children with them. . . . [T]hey have family in Indonesia, and their [business] can be run from anywhere in the world." Tr. May 17, 2007, at 39. With respect to defendants' proposed bail package, the government submitted that it was deficient in several respects. First, the proposed bonds were inadequately secured because one of the pieces of real property — the defendants' Long Island home — was subject to forfeiture as an item used in furtherance of the charged crime (and already restrained as such), and, "most troubling," defendants were not posting any "cash or other financial asset" despite the fact that they had identified security holdings of $3 million in their Pre-Trial Services interview. Id. at 10-12. The government also questioned the...