Colorado & Denver News

by Rick Sallinger
AURORA, Colo. (AP) ― A jury found a Saudi Arabian citizen guilty Friday of sexually abusing an Indonesian housekeeper and imprisoning her in his suburban home for four years -- a verdict that caused loud cries of anger and sorrow from family and friends inside the packed courtroom.

The Arapahoe County jury deliberated about 7 hours before convicting Homaidan Al-Turki, a 37-year-old who lives in Aurora, of 12 counts of unlawful sexual contact by use of force, threats or intimidation, false imprisonment, conspiracy to commit false imprisonment, criminal extortion and theft.

Some of those counts were reductions of the sexual assault and kidnapping charges Al-Turki had faced. However, he still faces between 8 years and life in prison for each of the sexual contact counts, prosecutor spokeswoman Kathleen Walsh said.

Sentencing was scheduled for Aug. 31.

Al-Turki's attorney, John Richilano, said he would appeal the conviction, but declined further comment. Richilano had argued that cultural differences were at the heart of the charges.

About two dozen men, women and children who were in the courtroom in support of Al-Turki erupted in cries after the verdicts were read. Some were distraught and had to be helped out of the courtroom, while one man was confronted by a sheriff's deputy outside the room and ordered to leave.

One of Al-Turki's young daughters planted herself outside the courtroom, screaming that she would not leave without her father. Eventually, a man was forced to pick her up and carry her away.

Al-Turki, dressed in a full-length white robe, was led away in handcuffs calmly after hugging his family and crying with them during a brief recess. He was arrested in November 2004 and had been free on bond and on house arrest.

Prosecutors and FBI agents have said Al-Turki and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, brought the now 24-year-old woman to Colorado to care for their five children and to cook and clean for the family. An affidavit said she spent four years with the family in the suburban home, sleeping on a mattress on the basement floor and getting paid less than $2 a day.

During the trial, Richilano told jurors the woman lived under the same customs as other women in the Al-Turki household. She chose to sleep in the family's unfinished basement so she could have privacy and voluntarily accepted the clothing and other restrictions the family imposed because she wanted to send money home to her impoverished relatives, he said.

She was arrested on immigration charges in November 2004 and placed in a safe house. She later reported the alleged assaults to a woman who had befriended her.

The Associated Press is not identifying the woman because of the sexual assault allegations.

Richilano also told jurors that prosecutors had no physical evidence to back up the accuser's story, which he said was invented so authorities would let her stay in the United States and avoid prosecution as an illegal immigrant overstaying her visa.

Tomsic said after the verdict that jurors had to deal with several cultural issues, including the victim's and Al-Turki's Muslim religion. For example, many originally may not have understood that the victim came from a country where crimes cannot be easily reported because of military rule.

"Most Americans just don't have any understanding of what these people are living in and coming from," Tomsic said.

She said the woman was to stay in the United States to testify against Al-Turki on a visa issued to victims of human trafficking. The woman has said she wanted to return to her home country once the proceedings are over, Tomsic said.

Al-Turki also faces an October federal trial on charges of forced labor, document servitude and harboring an illegal immigrant. In April, Al-Turki and Khonaizan agreed to pay the nanny about $64,000 in wages to settle a Labor Department lawsuit.

Khonaizan, 35, pleaded guilty to state and federal charges of theft and harboring an illegal immigrant and faces up to a year in prison when she is sentenced in July and August. She has agreed to return to Saudi Arabia after completing her sentences, her lawyers have said.

Al-Turki, a linguist, worked at a Denver publishing and translating company and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Colorado.

(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)