Long Island Slave Masters Troubles Increase

As if the charges against the Sabhnani's were not enough, Mahender Sabhnani is suing several perfume companies for trademark infringement of a perfume that Sabhnani sells out of the very home where the two slaves were alleged to be held.

Sabhnani contends he launched Attitude in 1995 and that it is sold nationwide. Then in March, Sabhnani read in Women's Wear Daily that L'Oreal was promoting a men's cologne with the same name.

He did some checking and found out that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had canceled his trademark because he had neglected to file some paperwork, and L'Oreal applied to use the name last December, the complaint says. Giorgio Armani Perfumes is a division of L'Oreal.

The case against Varsha Mahender Sabhnani and her husband even more complex than first thought:

Is this merely a case of a sadistic employer, one who hardly needed to save a few hundred dollars a month? Or, as the prosecutors' claim, is it a case of slave trafficking more akin to the 2004 bust of another Long Island couple, José Ibañez and Mariluz Zavala, who held 69 Peruvian compatriots as indentured servants in houses in Amityville, Brentwood and Coram? A lawyer for the Sabhnanis said the case would prove to be "much more involved and complicated."

For the two women now in safety (they are identified only by first names in court documents) it hardly matters what we call their torture, only that they have escaped. In the end, however, how authorities understand and define this case will matter to everyone, from the severity of the penalties to the legal status of the victims.

Details are still emerging, but already this case has pushed lawmakers in Albany to agree on anti-trafficking legislation.

There is another case in Queens that has similar allegations being made - that a family hired a nanny for $700 a month and became a virtual prisoner in the home until she slipped away while the family ate lunch:

Hasmat Ara has filed a lawsuit against Sakina and Kalman Khan in Brooklyn federal court, claiming she was hired to be a live-in caretaker for their young children - at a measly $700 a month - but was forced into "virtual slavery" her first day on the job.

Ara, an immigrant from Bangladesh, claims the couple hid the telephones behind a bolted bedroom door to prevent her from calling for help.

She escaped after 16 months, in April 2006, slipping away while the family ate lunch, she said.

These cases highlight the complexities involved in border control. It may also highlight what can happen to immigrants who make their way into the States and may have paid for their one-way trip with living as indentured servants to those who brought them here. These are all hidden costs of the ongoing failure to secure the borders and not having a workable immigration policy.