Joseph Yannai, 67-year-old Westchester cookbook author and admitted "dirty old man," was found guilty yesterday of luring young foreign women to come work for him as assistants and then sexually abusing them in his Pound Ridge home. The married Yannai, who earlier this week tried to commit suicide for the second time since being arrested, phoned into court to hear the verdict.
Yannai, who faces up to 80 years in prison for his sex crimes and violations of federal labor laws, reportedly required his young employees to "wear scanty clothing, forgo wearing bras, pressured them to have sex, and groped their breasts and buttocks." Other duties brought up in court included "giving him bubble baths and getting into bed with him after his afternoon nap in which he slept in the nude."
The defense in the case tried to argue that the women were all warned up front of what Yannai expected of them and that further, any sex had was consensual. The jury, however, did not agree.
