Forced-labor charges for Saudi prince's wife
WINCHESTER -- The wife of a Saudi prince was arrested yesterday for allegedly forcing two Indonesian housekeepers to work for her family at homes in Arlington and Winchester for meager wages over nearly two years.
A federal grand jury indicted Hana F. Al Jader on 10 counts of forced labor, domestic servitude, and other immigration offenses, alleging that she hid her servants' passports and work visas and threatened they would be harmed if they failed to perform the work.
Jader, a 39-year-old Saudi national married to Prince Mohamed Bin Turki Alsaud, shuffled into US District Court in Boston yesterday in handcuffs and shackles, wearing a black leather jacket and copper-polished fingernails.
Assistant US Attorney S. Theodore Merritt asked US Magistrate Judge Joyce London Alexander to deny bail for Jader, saying there is a ''serious risk" she could flee prosecution. Jader's arraignment and bail hearing were scheduled for tomorrow. She is being held until then.
Jader has not yet retained an attorney, though James Michael Merberg represented her in yesterday's initial appearance. Merberg said little yesterday, but he said after the hearing that Jader belonged to what ''seems to be a very fine family from Saudi Arabia."
Federal prosecutors charge that between February 2003 and November 2004, Jader threatened physical harm and restraint of her two domestic servants, identified only as ''Tri" and ''Ro" in court papers. The indictment alleges that she confiscated their passports and visas to keep them from leaving her houses, and that she made them believe that if they did not perform the labor, they would suffer serious harm.
The indictment alleges she drew up a phony work contract and submitted it to the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services to get visa extensions for the women to keep them working for her longer. In those documents, prosecutors say, she falsely claimed that the housekeepers were each earning $1,500 a month and working fewer than eight hours a day; prosecutors say their workdays were longer and their wages only $300 a month.
For most of 2004, the women were in the country illegally, the indictment says; Jader is also being charged with harboring illegal aliens in her homes for financial gain.
Samantha Martin, a spokeswoman for US Attorney Michael Sullivan, declined to comment on what sparked the investigation, which was aided by agents from the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Jader has no prior criminal record in Massachusetts, according to court testimony yesterday.
State records list Jader as president and treasurer of H&A International Inc., a business housed in a Medford condominium building with numerous other companies. Among them is A.N.Y. Corp., run by Ammar Chamo, a relative who co-owns her Winchester home, according to town records.
The federal government is trying to seize both properties that Jader allegedly used in the offenses. The Winchester home, which she and Chamo purchased in 2001 for $635,000, is now assessed at $781,600. The Arlington home is assessed at nearly $1.2 million.
A car marked ''consul" with US State Department license plates was parked last evening outside the large Winchester home, which overlooks busy Cambridge Street and a lake in a leafy area of town. A bedsheet and a New England Patriots banner served as curtains. Neighbors said as many as 20 to 30 people frequent the house, and that many of them live there.
If convicted, Jader could face 20 years in prison for two charges of forced labor; five years on each count of domestic servitude; 20 years on each count of falsification of documents; and 10 years for harboring aliens.
Officials from the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington plan to accompany Jader to tomorrow's hearing, Merberg said. A spokesman for the embassy did not return a phone call yesterday.
Westy Egmont, president of the International Institute of Boston, a resettlement agency, said in a statement yesterday that alleged mistreatment of the two housekeepers is ''unconscionable for a family of such obvious means."
''Unfortunately, other cases from Saudi Arabia indicate the concept of forced servitude is being practiced," he said.
