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Reddy’s sentence in jeopardy

Women Against Sexual Slavery
Friday October 11, 2002

To the Editor: 

 

On Oct. 4 an article in the Daily Planet reported that Lakireddy Reddy’s attorney, Ted Cassman, is petitioning the court to lighten his sentence by nearly two years on the grounds that an interpreter allegedly encouraged four of six of Reddy’s sex slaves to embellish their testimony against him. Shockingly, the attorney for the prosecution, Steve Corrigan, has agreed to Cassman’s request.  

Judge Claudia Wilken is expected to rule any day on Cassman’s proposal. There is reason to believe that without a speedy protest by many individuals, Judge Wilken will accede to the lighter sentence. Many of you may recall that Judge Armstrong, who presided over the Reddy cases until November 2001, argued forcefully that, as a result of the probation officer’s report, she believed that Reddy deserved a longer sentence than the six years agreed to by Reddy’s attorneys and the prosecuting attorney. 

Women Against Sexual Slavery and many others shared our outrage and denunciation of the very light eight-year sentence that Reddy received in June 2001. After a scandalous plea bargaining process, the charge that Reddy had been guilty of raping his underage sex slaves was dropped. He had also raped numerous other young sex slaves over a period of 15 years.  

Even more significantly, Reddy might well have been guilty of murdering 17-year-old Chanti Pratipatti by the delay he caused in her admittance to hospital. In addition, Reddy became rich by illegally importing numerous Indian workers to labor in his Pasand Restaurant and other businesses for next to nothing. Nevertheless, the plea bargain agreed to drop any charges against Reddy for Chanti’s death.  

On behalf of Women Against Sexual Slavery, we urge you to write to Judge Claudia Wilken as soon as possible to exhort her to deny Cassman’s request to lighten Reddy’s sentence. Write to her at the following address: Federal Building & U.S. Court House, 1301 Clay Street, Suite 400 South Oakland, CA 94612-5212, or call 637-3559.  

No fax number or e-mail address for Judge Wilken is available to the public. If you decide to hand deliver your letter, be sure to remember to take picture ID with you in order to gain entrance to the court house (situated between 12th and 14th Streets). The security personnel will inform you where to deliver your letters. 

We know that in the past, Judge Armstrong read and counted the letters sent to her about the Reddy case because she referred to them in court. They also become part of the official record of the case. Please take the time to try to keep Reddy in prison for the pitifully light eight-year sentence that he obtained. 

 

 

 

 

 

Women Against Sexual  

Slavery