See for the untold spy story : http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/12/devyani-khobragade-row-washingtons.html
Devyani Khobragade row: Washington's inexplicable interest in the Richards family -- Sandhya Jain
Timeline: Case of Devyani Khobragade, Indian diplomat arrested in New York
NEW YORK
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The arrest of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, 39, deputy consul general in New York, on charges of visa fraud and lying about payments to her housekeeper, Sangeeta Richard, has sparked outrage in India and protests this week in both countries. The following is a timeline of events emerging in New York:
Fall of 2012 - At Khobragade's home in India, the diplomat meets at least twice with Richard to discuss potential employment as her housekeeper in New York. September 27, 2012: Khobragade electronically files with the U.S. State Department for an A-1 visa, available only to persons traveling on official business for their nation's government.
October 15, 2012 - Khobragade electronically files for Richards with the U.S. State Department for an A-3 visa, which is typically given to personal employees and servants of A-1 visa holders and requires an interview. November 1, 2012 - Richard appears at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi to be interviewed in connection with the visa application, but is told she needs to return at a later date "with the necessary paperwork," according to papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. November 11, 2012 - Khobragade and Richard go to Khobragade's residence in India "to obtain an employment contract to bring to her interview at the U.S. Embassy," court papers said. The contract, dated November 11, 2012, states that Richard "will be paid wages at the prevailing or minimum wage as required by law, whichever is greater. The expected hourly salary in the U.S. would be $9.75," the court documents said.
November 14, 2012 - Khobragade and Richard appear at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and provide the contract which "represented that understood she would make $9.75 per hour working as a domestic helper in the U.S." and would work 40 hours a week in New York, court documents said. November 15, 2012 - Khobragade receives an A-3 visa for Richard.
November 2012 - "Shortly before departing to the airport in India," Khobragade calls Richard to her residence to sign "an enlarged and electronically edited version of the firstcontract," court papers said. The second contract is altered to say that Richard would be paid 25,000 rupees a month, with an additional 5,000 rupees a month for overtime, for a maximum monthly salary of that "will not exceed 30,000 rupees," according to court documents. That's about $480 a month, or about $3.31 an hour for a 40-hour week, or less than half the $7.25 legal minimum, according to prosecutors. The so-called second contract makes no mention of maximum or minimum hours per week that Richard will be required to work. November 23, 2012 - Khobragade signs a contract with Richard in New Delhi in which Richard agrees to come to the U.S. as Khobragade's domestic servant. June 22, 2013 - Richard, who is scheduled to return to India, leaves the Khobragade apartment on Manhattan's East 43rd Street, and has not returned since. Devyani Khobragade goes to the New York Police Department's 17th Precinct on East 51st Street, seeking to file a Missing Persons report on Richard, who she claims has disappeared from the home. Police decline to take the report because Khobragade is not a direct relative and Richard is an adult. June 24, 2013 - Khobragade contacts U.S. State Department officials to report Richard missing.
June 25, 2013 - Khobragade sends a letter to 17th Precinct NYPD Deputy Inspector James Sheerin, informing him that her housekeeper has gone missing and again requesting assistance from the NYPD to locate her.
Late June 2013 - Aakash Singh, Khobragade's philosophy professor husband, takes the couple's two children on a vacation to the U.S. Southeast. He returns to New York with the children sometime before July 8, 2013.
July 8, 2013 - Singh arrives at the 17th Precinct, but the New York police and Khobragade's attorney offer different accounts of what happened next.
Police said Singh reported that Richard had stolen property from his home and he asked to file a grand larceny complaint against her, but he could not identify the missing items. An officer sent him home to get a list of the missing items and their monetary value, explaining that grand larceny complaints require itemized documentation of at least $1000 worth of property. Police said Singh never returned and didn't respond to a follow-up call.
Khobragade's attorney Daniel Arshack has challenged this account, saying that Singh did in fact provide police with a list of the items on July 8. Arshack said Singh is not overly familiar with U.S. laws, denies using the term grand larceny and thought he was simply reporting a theft to police. Arshack said when a detective asked him whether he wanted to press charges, Singh became reluctant and decided he would first speak with consular officials and return to the precinct later to complete the complaint process. He concurred with police that Singh left without completing a theft report, and failed to respond to a follow-up attempt by New York police. That same day, Khobragade, accompanied by consular officers, speaks with Richard in Midtown Manhattan at a meeting Richard initiated through Access Immigration, a New York immigration assistance organization. Arshack says this is the last face-to-face meeting between the two women before Khobragade's arrest. During the encounter, Khobragade urges Richard to honor her visa requirement and return to India, while Richard demands cash and new immigration documents, Arshack said. The meeting grows so contentious that Access Immigration officials who are present call New York police to escort Richard out of the room. Access Immigration has declined comment other than to say the group is no longer working on Richard's case. July 2013 - Dana Sussman, staff attorney with Safe Horizon, a group that fights human trafficking, is contacted by an unidentified community organization seeking "immediate services" for Richard, the lawyer told Reuters. She meets with Richard, contacts U.S. State Department officials and soon is speaking to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The Khobragade criminal investigation begins. September 9, 2013 - India's Hon'ble High court of Delhi orders an injunction against Richard, restraining her from initiating legal proceedings against Khobragade.
December 11, 2013 - Preet Bahara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, files a criminal complaint against Khobragade with a federal magistrate court judge on one count of visa fraud and one count of making a false statement. If convicted on both counts, Khobragade faces a maximum of 15 years in prison. December 12, 2013 - Sometime between 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. local time, Khobragade is approached by U.S. State Department Diplomatic Security Service agents near her children's school on Manhattan's East Side. "Ms. Khobragade was accorded courtesies well beyond what other defendants, most of whom are American citizens, are accorded," Bharara said in a statement released late on December 18. "She was not, as has been incorrectly reported, arrested in front of her children. The agents arrested her in the most discreet way possible, and unlike most defendants, she was not then handcuffed or restrained. In fact, the arresting officers did not even seize her phone as they normally would have. Instead, they offered her the opportunity to make numerous calls to arrange personal matters and contact whomever she needed, including allowing her to arrange for child care. This lasted approximately two hours. Because it was cold outside, the agents let her make those calls from their car and even brought her coffee and offered to get her food."
After being transported to the U.S. District Court building in downtown Manhattan, Khobragade is turned over to U.S. Marshals Service personnel, and strip-searched and placed in a holding cell in the courthouse.
Bharara, in the December 18 statement, said that Khobragade "was fully searched by a female Deputy Marshal - in a private setting - when she was brought into the U.S. Marshals' custody, but this is standard practice for every defendant, rich or poor, American or not, in order to make sure that no prisoner keeps anything on his person that could harm anyone, including himself. This is in the interests of everyone's safety."
Khobragade is arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman, and released around 4:30 p.m. after posting bail, surrendering her passport and other measures. December 20, 2013: Richard is believed to still be in New York City.
Sources: Indian court order, criminal complaint by U.S. Attorney's office, Bahara's statements from December 12 and 18, Reuters interviews with Khobragade attorney Arshack, Safe Horizon attorney Sussman, interviews with NYPD officials.
(Reporting by Chris Francescani; Editing by Barbara Goldberg)
MAID IN MANHATTAN: A MIGRATION PROJECT
Saturday, 21 December 2013 | Ashok Malik | in Edit
Why did the Devyani Khobragade case blow up into a diplomatic crisis? Three factors have to be kept in mind. First, Ms Khobragade’s arrest has so angered the Indian system because there is genuine belief in the Ministry of External Affairs that she did no wrong. She is not guilty of any individual crime. If she used a short-cut — and one a clever lawyer can defend in court — it was with the approbation of both countries.
Contrary to media reports, Ms Khobragade’s contract with her housekeeper, Sangeeta Richard, does not promise her a composite sum of US $4,500 a month or anything of the sort. It promises an hourly wage — “minimum wage in New York or prevailing wage, whichever is higher” — and agrees to make deductions for perquisites such as medical insurance, room rent, food and so on. This contract was shown, not submitted, to United States Embassy officials by Ms Richard to get her visa. Ms Richard also submitted a form that stated her employer’s salary — a third figure altogether and if considered strictly in terms of its cash component, itself in violation of New York’s minimum wage.
Some but far from all Indian diplomats posted in the US take along domestic staff. These employees are paid high salaries by Indian standards and all expenses are taken care of. Obviously hourly wages in New York (or Washington, DC) are much greater and some of the domestic employees are tempted to moonlight. On occasion, they have alleged mistreatment by the diplomat, gone to human rights NGOs and sought to institute legal proceedings. In some cases, Indian diplomats have been indicted. In some cases, the police has found no case against them and recognised the charges are false. However, so strong is the organised human rights/anti-trafficking lobby that in all cases — irrespective of the veracity of their charges — the cooks or housekeepers have got their green cards or legal resident status in the US.
So why didn’t Ms Richard allege the Khobragade family was beating her up and why did she bring up the salary discrepancy? This is because Ms Khobragade had done something different from other Indian Foreign Service colleagues who take along domestic staff. She had signed a second contract, promising to pay Ms Richard Rs 30,000 a month. The entire money was transferred to a bank account — since Ms Richard had no expenses in New York — and the second contract was signed to make the employee feel secure. Such second contracts are certainly not usual practice. The MEA believes Ms Khobragade signed the second contract in good faith. Ms Richard’s insistence on this is now being viewed as ‘entrapment’ and part of a pre-conceived migration plan.
Second, it is likely somebody in the US Embassy — probably an official or a family member, acting in a private capacity and knowing Ms Richard and her in-laws personally — advised Ms Richard to exploit the two-contract loophole, use anti-trafficking laws to bolster her case, approach certain anti-trafficking NGOs and then District Attorney Preet Bharara’s office. This person possibly made Ms Richard aware that if, at this stage, the district attorney’s office asked for Ms Richard’s family to be ‘evacuated’ to the US as witnesses in an anti-trafficking case, their visas could not be denied. Adult family members would be given the requisite T category visa to live and work in the US.
In South Block, there is belief this elaborate plan was drawn up even before Ms Richard left for the US. That is why External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid called Ms Khobragade the victim of “a conspiracy”. The end purpose of the conspiracy was to facilitate the Richard family’s permanent migration.
Third, the motivations of Mr Bharara and the State Department are different. Mr Bharara is an ambitious man in New York, looking to take on the high and mighty — usually white collar criminals on Wall Street — project himself as ‘Mr Clean-up’ and build a political career. Targeting a diplomat who seemed to violate a contract, especially a diplomat from the country of his origin, appealed to him. New York is home to hundreds of diplomats, working in consulates or at the United Nations. Some can be pushy, emboldened by their immunity status. This has made the diplomatic corps unpopular with ordinary New Yorkers. Ironically, Indian diplomats are relatively well behaved in this construct. Nevertheless, Mr Bharara grabbed his chance.
The State Department was asleep at the wheel. Old India hands had moved out in recent months and a new team was handling New Delhi. Its communication channels were blurred. It clearly did not anticipate the Indian reaction. As for the US Embassy, it has known for years that the contract shown by domestic employees while applying for a visa is not necessarily indicative of true cash wage. It informally advised this subterfuge as part of an arrangement between two foreign offices, which gave each other privileges that technically may have violated local laws.
So what happens next? Ms Khobragade’s lawyer will contest Mr Bharara on grounds of jurisdiction, contending the contracts can’t be adjudicated by a New York court. Mr Bharara will push for conviction. The State Department can back Mr Bharara’s legal case or it can grant Ms Khobragade a G-1 visa and agree to her transfer to the Indian mission at the UN. This will give her full diplomatic immunity. Alternatively, it can declare her persona non grata and expel her. In that case India will similarly expel a US diplomat.
Whatever happens, the Indian system is determined to walk down the path of reciprocity. Unilateral privileges given to US diplomats have been withdrawn. The blanket airport passes for US officials have gone. The barricades outside the US embassy in New Delhi, which blocked a major city road, have been removed. They were not there because of any specific threat perception but followed a verbal request made to an earlier, expansive Lieutenant Governor of Delhi by the then US Ambassador.
The US gives officials at the Indian embassy in Washington, DC, full diplomatic immunity but denies this to diplomats at Indian consulates in other cities. In India, however, it has sought full diplomatic immunity even for its consulate officials in say Chennai or Mumbai. India has revoked this. Consulate officials will have lesser consular immunity. Their identity cards will be stamped with “No immunity from felony”. This is exactly what cards of Indian consulate officials in the US say.
Next, the Indian taxman will get into the act. Indians employed by the US Embassy and by US diplomats in a personal capacity will be required to submit income as well as tax documentation. If irregularities are found, to assist the course of justice their American employers may be ‘requested’ to come to the tax office to help ‘clarify doubts’.
A host of privileges, some of them extracted in the aftermath of the 1962 war with China, when India was vulnerable, are being reconsidered. Foreign nationals (like spouses or friends of diplomats) teaching in the American Embassy School in India are allowed tax-free salaries. This regime is being re-assessed. Foreign teachers at such schools do need work permits. Do they have them? Are Indian teachers too being paid tax-free salaries, which would be illegal? These are all questions the tax bureaucracy will ask. It will not be a picnic.
Lastly, what of Sangeeta Richard and her family? Frankly, their migration project is complete. India will never see them again.
(The accompanying visual is of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade’s absconding domestic help Sangeeta Richard along with her husband Phillip)
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