A federal court in Richmond, Virginia, sentenced three defendants Thursday for conspiracy to commit forced labor of a Pakistani woman for 12 years.
Zahida Aman, 80, was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison, Mohammed Rehan Chaudhri, 48, to 10 years, and Mohammad Nauman Chaudhri, 55, to five years..
Additionally, the judge ordered Aman and Rehan Chaudhri to pay the victim $250,000 in restitution for back wages and other financial losses she incurred due to the criminal conduct.
Following a seven-day trial in May 2022, the jury convicted all of the defendants of conspiracy to commit forced labor, convicted two of the defendants of forced labor, and convicted Aman of document servitude.
Aman arranged for her son’s marriage to the victim in 2002. Still, even after the victim’s husband moved away from home, the defendants kept the victim in their Virginia home to serve the extended family.
“These defendants callously exploited the victim’s vulnerabilities and brutally coerced her labor through physical violence and emotional abuse,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Human trafficking is an affront to human rights and to our nation’s core values. The Department of Justice is committed to vindicating the rights of survivors and bringing human traffickers to justice.”
“Human trafficking is a global issue that cannot be tackled alone,” said Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. “The FBI will remain committed to investigating all forms of human trafficking and work with our law enforcement partners in combatting the problem.”
According to the evidence presented in court, the defendants made the victim serve the family as a domestic servant, using physical and verbal abuse, restricting communication with her family in Pakistan, confiscating her immigration documentation and money, and eventually threatening to separate her from her children by deporting her to Pakistan.
According to officials, the defendants slapped, kicked, and pushed the victim, even beat her with a wooden board, and on one occasion, hog-tied her hands and feet and dragged her down the stairs in front of her children. All of these coercive means were employed by the defendants to compel the victim’s labor in their home.
The evidence further showed that the defendants required the victim to work every day, beginning early each morning.
They restricted her food, forbade her from learning to drive or speaking to anyone except the defendants’ family members, and prohibited her from calling her family in Pakistan, officials stated.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stephen Miller, Shea Gibbons and Heather Mansfield for the Eastern District of Virginia and Trial Attorney Leah Branch of the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit prosecuted the case.