The "diplomatic nightmare" touched off by the arrest in
New York of an Indian consular official is all a big mistake, a defense
attorney told ABC News even as the prosecutor issued a strongly-worded
defense of the arrest.
"From the beginning this was a diplomatic nightmare," Arshack said.
Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Khobragade "clearly tried to evade U.S. law designed to protect from exploitation the domestic employees of diplomats and consular officers."
Khobragade, 39, was accused of submitting falsified documents to obtain a work visa for a nanny, promising to pay $4,500 per month but in reality paying just $573 per month, little more than three dollars an hour.
She faces one count of visa fraud and one count of making a false statement.
Arshack said the Diplomatic Security Service agent who reviewed the visa application misread it. He said the monthly $4,500 is Khobragade's salary. According to the attorney the nanny was to be paid $9.75 per hour. She was paid $3.31 per hour because she had asked the balance be sent directly to relatives in India.
Khobragade was arrested outside her daughter's Manhattan school after she dropped off her daughter for class. Indian officials have complained she was strip-searched and held in a cell with common criminals, procedures in line with the policies of the United States Marshals Service.
The crisis has reached the highest levels of American government. Secretary of State John Kerry has tried to smooth things over by "expressing regret."
"As a father of two daughters about the same age as Devyani Khobragade, the secretary empathizes with the sensitivities we are hearing from India," the State Department said in a statement.
But Bharara gave no indication he would back down.
"One wonders why there is so much outrage about the alleged treatment of the Indian national accused of perpetrating these acts, but precious little outrage about the alleged treatment of the Indian victim and her spouse," he said.
The Indian Embassy issued a statement in response to Bharara's comment saying, "We need to keep in mind the simple fact that there is only one victim in this case. That victim is Devyani Khobragade - a serving Indian Diplomat on mission in the United States."
According to sources familiar with the case the nanny disappeared in June after she told the family she was going shopping. Khobragade tried to file a missing persons report with police. The nanny surfaced in July at the nonprofit Safe Horizons where an attorney asked Khobragade to pay money, let the nanny out of her job and arrange a new visa that would allow her to stay in the country on her own, requests the diplomat refused. Khobragade then called the State Department because the terms of the nanny's visa required her to work as a domestic employee or return to India.
Khobragade was released last week on $250,000 bail. Defense attorney Arshack said she is immune from prosecution.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed:
Strip searched? CNN called he treatment at the hands of the American Gestapo BARBARIC! Read more here.
Can anyone guess why this woman was strip searched? Could it be because she's hot? It's no secret that the TSA perverts generally only body scan attractive young women.
The Christian Science Monitor is also reporting on the American Gestapo tactics used on Devyani Khobragade.
People in India a fucking pissed off and rightfully so. Not only should the US change its attitude toward Indians but the fascist US should change its Nazi attitude about all humans.
The US throws more people in jail than China whose population is 1.351 billion (2012). The United States has a total resident population of 317,281,000.
