Walnut Creek woman convicted of enslaving nanny (Calif)

[Kadie]

Walnut Creek woman convicted of enslaving nanny
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, October 9, 2009

(10-09) 15:20 PDT WALNUT CREEK --

A Walnut Creek real estate agent has been convicted of charges that she lured a Peruvian nanny to the East Bay with promises of a better life but instead kept her as an indentured servant for nearly two years.

Mabelle de la Rosa Dann, 46, also known as Mabelle Crabbe, kept the nanny a virtual prisoner, cut her off from Spanish-speaking media and rationed her food, authorities said.

snip...
Prosecutors said Dann lured Pena-Canal here with the promise that she would live in a large house with her own bedroom and private bathroom. Dann allegedly said she would pay Pena-Canal $600 a month after deducting the cost of the plane ticket for the first five months.

Instead, Pena-Canal knew almost no world outside Dann's 900-square-foot apartment on Ygnacio Valley Road in the Cypress Creek apartment complex in Walnut Creek, where the two women lived with Dann's three children, Special Agent Jennifer Alderete of Immigration and Customs Enforcement wrote in an affidavit filed in federal court.

Pena-Canal worked seven days a week caring for the children, cleaning the apartment, cooking and washing laundry, Alderete wrote. She was forced to live on the living room floor.

Pena-Canal "appeared unkempt and wore the same clothing each day," Alderete wrote.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/09/BAKL1A3HGA.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0TUPrGaRq

[malaise]

1. This happened to a Jamaican couple in Texas

a few years ago. It was really shocking since they kept them as slaves for nearly seven years.

[kestrel91316]

2. 5 people in a 900 sf apartment?????

[Hekate]

7. I grew up in a 750 sf house (I think that included the lanai):mom, dad, and four kids...

Three BR, 1 bath (actually a shower stall) -- the difference being that this was cheerfully standard for our neighborhood and no one was enslaved indoors.

The Peruvian nanny situation is outrageous and extremely sad. :-(

Hekate

[Stuart G]

3. This is very sad.

[izquierdista]

4. Was she an immigrant herself?

I didn't see it in the article, but there have been a few cases like this in the news in the last few years, and almost always, it is immigrants who have been here longer taking advantage of their fellow countrymen. "Yes, America is a great place, you should come here. I can find you work". And when they get here they get screwed over.

[intheflow]

5. What happened to the children?

The father seems MIA, the mother's mother is implicated as an accomplice. So where are the kids? And is anyone taking into account that they were unwitting witnesses and probably need some trauma therapy themselves? Or at least anti-racist debriefing?

[havocmom]

6. Sadly, there is a segment of the population that thinks slavery is fine and dandy

They probably do not share our political goals.

[roguevalley]

8. what a bitch. she enjoyed this or she would have fed the woman full

rations. power drunk bitch.