An upstate widow has been accused by authorities of breaking immigration laws and keeping an illegal alien essentially as a house slave. 39-year-old Annie George of Rexford reportedly compelled an Indian woman, identified in court as V.M., to overstay her visa and then had her cook, clean and care her her six children (while sleeping in a closet in one of the kids's bedrooms).
The servant had previously worked for a U.N. employee's family before being lured by George in 2005 with a $1,000 a month salary—not that she got that, according to the complaint she was paid about $29,000 total despite working 17 hour days. At the George home, Annie's real estate mogul husband Mathai died in 2009, V.M. was tasked with caring and cooking for the children as well as maintaining the 30,000-square-foot mansion in Rexford—which boasts 34 rooms, 10 bedrooms, an indoor pool, helicopter pad, a four-story solarium, a glass elevator and 24-karat gold gilded ceilings—that they lived in.
V.M.'s work allegedly went without a personal or sick day from October 2005 until April 27, 2011, when federal Homeland Security agents, working on a tip, went to George’s mansion and demanded she release the woman. According to the complaint George owes V.M. $77,000 for the last two years and about $206,000 for the last six years of work. George, for her part, is denying the allegations. A lawyer for her tells the Post that "The woman was not a servant, and she [George] wasn’t keeping her in the house or anything else."
Sadly this isn't the first (and probably isn't the last) story we've heard about rich people keeping maids like slaves. Honestly, we much prefer hearing about slaves by choice—like this guy.
