Three men accused of keeping a 20-year-old college student from India in slave-like conditions at a home in Defiance, Missouri, appeared in court today. Their attorneys had the difficult job of arguing that their clients facing a combined 17 felonies — human trafficking-related charges among them — ought to be allowed out of jail pending their day in court.
The charges stem from last month when police responded to the home of Sravan Penumetcha and Nikhil Penmatsa on rural Highway D after being asked by a neighbor to perform a welfare check. Officers were initially denied entry to the home, but then the 20-year-old, whose name is not being made public, ran outside "yelling, screaming for help,” according to St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney Joseph McCulloch. The young man had wounds over much of his body as well as broken bones.
Penumetcha and Penmatsa, as well as the purported ringleader of the abuse, Venkatesh Sattaru, have been charged with a litany of crimes, including abuse through forced labor, armed criminal action and kidnapping.
McCulloch said that Sattaru was the "main target" of the investigation as well as the 20-year-old's cousin. He would allegedly call Penumetcha and Penmatsa and instruct them to beat the 20-year-old over a livestream. If the victim did not scream loud enough, Sattaru would tell them to beat him harder. "I don't know how much more animalistic type of behavior you can get than that," McCulloch said at a press conference following the three men being charged.
However, the defense attorneys all aggressively pushed back against what one of them, William Goldstein, called “the narrative that has been reported in the news.”
They were adamant that no human trafficking had taken place.
Goldstein, who is representing Sattaru, cited multiple instances during the time of the alleged trafficking when the 20-year-old was pulled over by police or got into a car accident while driving alone. Goldstein questioned how an alleged human trafficking victim was able to drive alone in his alleged captor’s car on his alleged captor’s insurance. In one instance, Goldstein said, when police attempted to pull the 20-year-old over, he called Sattaru for help.
In the latter half of November, the 20-year-old victim was also seen at the DMV renewing his driver's license and shopping at a Bass Pro Shop. Goldstein submitted to the court photos of Sattaru with the 20-year-old at events spaces in St. Charles as well as at a carnival, dinners and out shopping.
Goldstein theorized that human trafficking was "a narrative this young man is trying to sell to the news" as a way for him to attain citizenship.
About the apparent severe injuries to the 20-year-old, Goldstein admitted: "We don't deny there was some disciplining going on." He added that Sattaru had "some proclivities," but that those were a separate case entirely from human trafficking. "It's not the line this [20-year-old] wants everyone to believe, that he is some human slave, some human trafficking victim," Goldstein said.
However, St. Charles County prosecutor Lawrence Chrum said that the photos showing apparent happy times between Sattaru and the victim were a calculated fraud to make Sattaru look like a "good guy."
"Who takes 75 photos of a man over a period of time who isn't your child?" he asked.
Chrum had photos and videos of his own to show Judge Jeffery Sandcork — photos of the bruised and battered victim.
At one point in the hearing, the attorneys and Sandcork went into the judge's chambers to view a video that purportedly showed the 20-year-old being beaten with a crowbar in the build-out of a restaurant. Elsewhere during the hearing, Goldstein stated that Sattaru was in the process of opening two restaurants when he was arrested. He previously operated the Absolute BBQ Indian Wish Grill in Chesterfield.
Chrum said that even though the 20-year-old did have access to a car, he was still under the full control of Sattaru and the car could only be used to run errands for him. If the 20-year-old was late in getting back, he would be beaten. He called the arguments made by Goldstein and the other two attorneys as examples of "gaslighting."
The 20-year-old victim was asked if he wanted to be present at the bond hearing today, to which Chrum said that the young man replied, "I think it is a million times better for me to kill myself than for me to see their faces or for them to get out of jail."
Chrum added that not long before the police responded to the house in Defiance for the welfare check, the 20-year-old and the three men now charged with holding him captive were all out a restaurant together when a concerned diner secretly passed the 20-year-old a note that said, "Are you OK. Call me if you're not."
The attorneys for the three men said they were willing to surrender their passports and remain on GPS monitoring, if allowed out on bond. Sandcork said he will make his ruling on their bond at a later date.
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