Abused woman was forced to be ‘servant’ of her husband’s family for 12 years, feds say
A woman was forced to work for her husband’s family — acting as a “servant” inside their home during 12 years of extreme abuse, federal prosecutors said.
Now the three family members accused of abusing her, and encouraging the woman’s children to participate in the abuse as she was forced to work in the Virginia home, are going to prison, according to prosecutors and court documents.
A judge sentenced the woman’s mother-in-law and family matriarch Zahida Aman, 80, of Midlothian, to 12 years in prison on Jan. 23 in connection with the forced labor, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced in a Jan. 24 news release.
Immediately after the woman married her husband and moved to the U.S. from Pakistan, Aman told her “if you want to be happy in your married life, the way to your husband’s heart is through me … and if you want him happy, you have to make me happy,” court documents show.
Aman’s two sons, the brothers of the woman’s husband, were also sentenced in the case on Jan. 23, according to prosecutors. Mohammed Rehan Chaudhri, 48, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and Mohammad Nauman Chaudhri, 55, was sentenced to 5 years in prison, officials said.
The three family members “exploited the victim’s trust and inflicted cruel and inhumane physical and mental abuse on her, all so they could keep her working in their home as their domestic servant,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a statement in May when the trio’s convictions were announced.
Attorneys separately representing Aman and Rehan Chaudhri denied a request for comment from McClatchy News on Jan. 24.
Craig Sampson, an attorney representing Nauman Chaudhri, told McClatchy News in a statement on Jan. 24 that his client “is not evil.”
“This case was complicated and featured many issues and circumstances that commonly present themselves in difficult divorce cases,” Sampson said and added that his client “has the love and support of many friends and colleagues.”
The woman lived in a ‘climate of fear’
In 2001, the woman’s marriage to her husband was arranged by Aman, who prosecutors said gave the woman an engagement ring, court documents show. By 2002, the couple were married following a year-long engagement.
After the wedding, and after the woman moved from Pakistan to her husband’s family’s home in Midlothian, Aman “asserted her role as the leader and organizer of the family,” a sentencing memo says.
Aman took away the woman’s personal items, jewelry and immigration papers and started ordering her to perform house work, according to the sentencing memo.
For the next 12 years, the woman was physically and emotionally abused by Aman and her two sons in the home while living in a “climate of fear,” prosecutors said.
During this period, the woman’s husband left the home to practice medicine in Pennsylvania in 2006 before moving to California to do the same in 2008, according to a superseding indictment.
To keep the woman working in the home, Aman and her two sons “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,” prosecutors said.
Additionally, the trio “alienated” the woman from her children, who she shared with her husband, and had some of them take part in the abuse, according to the superseding indictment.
When the children “expressed a ‘need’ for their mother” they were punished, the sentencing memo says.
Prosecutors said the woman lived under the constant threat that she’d be separated from her children and was threatened with deportation if she didn’t perform labor inside the home even though she had valid immigration status.
As a result of a seven-day trial in May, Aman and her two sons were all convicted of conspiracy to commit forced labor, according to prosecutors. Aman was also convicted of forced labor and document servitude while Rehan Chaudhri was also convicted of forced labor, a May release said.
Aman and Rehan Chaudhri must also pay the woman $250,000 in restitution as part of their sentencing, according to officials.
Midlothian is about 15 miles west of Richmond.
This story was originally published January 24, 2023 at 4:53 PM with the headline "Abused woman was forced to be ‘servant’ of her husband’s family for 12 years, feds say."
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