Slave trial lawyer: Conviction should be overturned

The conviction of Varsha Sabhnani for enslaving and torturing two Indonesian women should be overturned because prejudicial publicity prevented her from having a fair trial on Long Island, her defense attorney argued yesterday to a federal appellate court.

The claim by Manhattan defense attorney Susan Wolfe that the trial should have been moved was one of numerous reasons defense attorneys for both Sabhnani and her husband, Mahender Sabhnani, of Muttontown, gave for reversing their convictions to a three-judge panel of the U.S Court of Appeals in Manhattan.

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz argued that the conviction of his client, Mahender Sabhnani, should be reversed because he had not taken active part in harming the two Indonesian women, Samirah and Enung. Dershowitz said a crime Mahender Sabhnani was convicted of - aiding and abetting his wife's criminal activities - required active participation in the crime.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Monica Ryan disagreed, saying that the Sabhnanis had received a fair trial.

Varsha Sabhnani is serving an 11-year sentence in federal prison for seriously abusing the two women; her husband, who was sentenced to 40 months in prison, is confined to the couple's home, awaiting the outcome of the appeal that was argued yesterday.

The couple was convicted in December 2007 after a seven-week trial in federal court in Central Islip that featured graphic testimony by Enung and Samirah about how they had been mistreated.

The appellate judges seemed skeptical of the argument that because of the publicity, Long Island jurors could not be impartial and the trial should have been moved.

The trial judge in the case had examined the jurors carefully about their attitudes and barred them from reading or listening to media accounts, the appellate judges noted.

To say that the trial was influenced by prejudicial publicity is to assume "that the jury was lying," said Judge Jane Restani.