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Home Front: Culture Wars
Woman Pleads Guilty To Immigration Charge In Colorado Slavery Case
2006-05-10
A woman accused of keeping an Indonesian nanny as a virtual slave for four years pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal charge of harboring an illegal immigrant. Sarah Khonaizan, 35, faces a sentence ranging from probation to a year in prison and a fine of up to $20,000, attorneys said. In exchange for her guilty plea, prosecutors dropped charges of forced labor and document servitude.
Why? Why on earth drop these charges? Why not put the her and her Saoooodi husband on trial for the max? The Feds need to send a message here.
Prosecutors and FBI agents accused Khonaizan and her husband, Homaidan Al-Turki, both Saudi citizens, of hiding the woman's passport and forcing her to cook, clean and care for their five children in their suburban Aurora home.
Confiscating the employee's passport, just like back home.
She slept on a mattress on the basement floor and was paid less than $2 a day, an FBI affidavit said. State prosecutors also alleged that Al-Turki sexually abused the woman repeatedly. The Associated Press is not identifying her because of the sexual assault allegations.

Al-Turki's case is still pending. He faces federal charges of forced labor, document servitude and harboring an illegal immigrant and state charges of sexual assault, kidnapping, false imprisonment, extortion and theft. Khonaizan also faces state charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment, extortion and theft. Her attorney, Forrest Lewis, told the judge his client will enter a guilty plea in Arapahoe County District Court on Friday, but he declined further comment after the hearing.

Attorneys made no mention of Al-Turki's case Tuesday and it was not clear whether Khonaizan's plea agreement requires her to cooperate with prosecutors. U.S. District Judge Walker Miller scheduled a July 28 sentencing hearing, but said he wanted to review a pre-sentencing report on Khonaizan before deciding whether to accept her plea. Lewis said that was not unusual.

Lewis said after the hearing Khonaizan's concerns about her children prompted her to accept the plea deal. "Bringing it to a conclusion in a way that allows the family to get back to normal and for her to care for her children was a main motivation," he said. Lewis said Khonaizan would not fight any deportation order and plans to voluntarily return to Saudi Arabia after completing her federal and state sentences.

Khonaizan and Al-Turki agreed to settle a separate civil lawsuit filed by the Labor Department by paying their former nanny about $64,000. Prosecutor Brenda Taylor told the judge there might be additional restitution included in Khonaizan's plea agreement.

Al-Turki, a linguist, worked at a Denver publishing and translating company and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Colorado.
Okay Buffaloes, here's your chance to do the right thing and kick his woman-abusing tucchus out of your grad school.

/who am I kidding?

UPDATE: Also this, from the CU campus paper:
Defense attorney John Richilano has said in court that Al-Turki has been a "person of interest" to federal authorities since 1995 for allegedly "having ties to terrorist organizations." In a court filing, prosecutors acknowledged that Al-Turki and his family have been under surveillance for reasons unrelated to housekeeper case but said information Al-Turki's attorneys sought "constitutes classified national security information." They argued they should not have to turn over any information about the surveillance to the defense.
Posted by:Seafarious

#7  Why is a Saudi studying Arabic pronunciation in Colorado?!?
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-05-10 23:04  

#6  Homaidan bin Ali al Turki is 36 years old, and a father of four. Homaidan and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, aged 35, arrived in the US in 2000.



Al-Turki is a graduate student in linguistics at the University of Colorado, specializing in Arabic intonation and focus prosody. He donates money to the Linguistic Society of America and is CEO of Al-Basheer Publications and Translations, a bookstore specializing in titles about Islam.



Homaidan and Sarah, were arrested in November 2004 due to an expired visa. His wife was released but Homaidan was released only after he paid 25,000 US bond.

Posted by: john   2006-05-10 22:41  

#5  website of Homaidan Al-Turki.
Posted by: john   2006-05-10 22:40  

#4  so the feds ignored the housekeeper being kept as a slave in order to "watch" these people with terrorist ties. And while the FED watched the terrorists grew their organizations right under their noses.

Shameful. Utterly shameful in so many ways.
Posted by: 2b   2006-05-10 10:56  

#3  No-brainer: Jail then deportation to Saudi.
Posted by: mcsegeek1   2006-05-10 10:11  

#2  So Mrs. Al-Turki may well go to prison for this as well as future charges. Mr. Al-Turki will go to prison for kidnapping, rape, and theft of wages, after which he will be deported with extreme prejudice, his name added to the list of undesirables, which I imagine is shared with other sympathetic governments. Likely he will find it difficult to again enjoy living in Western comfort. Their five children will be sent back to the care of relatives in Saudi Arabia, where no doubt they will not deal well with the situation, poor things. And no doubt the nanny will get to go home.

The cumulative result is fine by me.
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-05-10 09:26  

#1  Note the name: Al-Turki. Sound familiar?
Posted by: Spot   2006-05-10 08:35  

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