Lakireddy Bali Reddy

Lakireddy Bali Reddy is a prominent landlord in Berkeley, California, who was convicted in 2001 for immigration fraud and trafficking minors for illegal sexual activity.

Background

Bali Reddy was born in 1937 in Velvadam village in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, India. He completed his Bachelors in Science and Bachelors in Technology degrees from Osmania University, in Hyderabad, and attended the University of California, Berkeley on a scholarship in 1960, graduating with a master's degree in chemical engineering. After completing his master's degree, he started working in a private company, and then went into business for himself in the real estate and restaurant industry.

Labor trafficking

On November 24, 1999, Reddy and a group of his employees were spotted carrying the unconscious body of a 17-year-old girl into a van, and trying to force an 18-year-old girl in as well. Marcia Poole, a passing motorist, stopped the kidnapping and alerted the police who came to the scene, but Reddy managed to resolve the situation, by claiming that the unconscious girl was the daughter of one of his employees. The 17-year-old and her 15-year-old sister, who had been lying in a nearby stairwell, had suffered carbon monoxide poisoning in a Reddy-owned apartment and were taken to nearby Alta Bates hospital, where the 17-year-old was pronounced dead. The police accepted Reddy's explanation of an accidental death, but the Berkeley High Jacket, the student newspaper of nearby Berkeley High School, found it odd that the girls had not been attending school. Reporters Megan Greenwell and Iliana Montauk dug into the case and broke the story, exposing a web of criminal activity.

Reddy had been exploiting the H-1B visa system for years to traffick poor Indian workers into the country as forced laborers. He brought in over 20 immigrants on the H-1B program, claiming that they were computer programmers. In many cases, he had the workers petition to bring in other trafficked workers into the US, claiming that they were family, and backing up the claims with falsified documents. The trafficked workers were generally made to work in Reddy's restaurants and apartment buildings. The two girls, supposed "daughters" of one of Reddy's "programmers," were not only forced to clean Reddy's buildings, but were also his underaged sex slaves.

Reddy was sentenced to eight years in prison, required to repay US$2 million dollars, and will be a registered sex offender upon his release. Two of his sons received lesser sentences for conspiracy to defraud the INS as part of plea agreements. Reddy was released April 2, 2008. [ [http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/InmateFinderServlet?Transaction=NameSearch&needingMoreList=false&LastName=Reddy&Middle=Bali&FirstName=Lakireddy&Race=U&Sex=U&Age=&x=23&y=8 Federal Bureau of Prisons ] ]

The Reddy family currently operates numerous apartment complexes in the Berkeley area under the names "Reddy Realty" and "Everest Properties", as well as the "Pasand" restaurants in Berkeley and Santa Clara.

References

* [http://www.oig.dol.gov/public/media/lbreddy.html US DOJ case reference]
* [http://www.lbrceonline.ac.in/chairman.html Lakireddy's profile from Lakireddy Bali Reddy College of Engineering]
* [http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?archiveDate=06-08-04&storyID=19030 First person account of November 24th, 1999 street melee]
* [http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/archive/2000/03/04/NEWS2896.dtl "Teen girl in landlord case died pregnant" by Matthew Yi, The Examiner, March 4, 2000]