Features

Last Defendant to Plead In Sex Slavery Tragedy

By MATTHEW ARTZ
Friday October 31, 2003

The older son of notorious Berkeley landlord Lakireddy Bali Reddy was scheduled to enter a guilty plea today, Friday, Oct. 31, as part of the agreement that will complete the prosecution of family members for smuggling young Indian girls into the country for sex and cheap labor. 

Prasad Lakireddy, 44, was scheduled to stand trial in January on charges of immigration fraud and witness tampering. Last April, federal prosecutors had dropped the more severe charge of travel with intent to engage in sex with a juvenile. 

Lakireddy is the last member of his family to face prosecution. His father, brother, aunt and uncle all accepted plea bargains. 

The family members were charged after the death of 17-year old Chanti Prattpati from carbon monoxide poisoning Nov. 24, 1999, in a Berkeley apartment owned by the Reddys. The girl’s 15-year-old sister survived the gas poisoning, caused by a blocked heating vent. She told federal authorities that she and her sister were flown to the United States and forced to have sex. 

Lakireddy attorney Paul Wolf and federal prosecutor Stephen Corrigan did not return calls about the plea to be offered before U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, who will then schedule a sentencing hearing. 

Last November, Wilken sentenced Lakireddy’s younger brother Vijay to two years in a minimum security prison after he entered a guilty plea to one count of immigration fraud. 

Prasad, Vijay and their father, Lakireddy Bali Reddy, are the subjects of a $100 million class action civil suit filed last year by nine Indian women and the parents of two others.