O'Melveny and Bet Tzedek Win $768,000 Verdict for Alleged Human Trafficking Victim
By Andrew Longstreth
November 03, 2009
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O'Melveny & Myers is quietly putting together an impressive string of pro bono wins. First there were the two reversals of criminal convictions that the firm won at the U.S. Supreme Court--Abuelhawa v. United States this year and Cuellar v. United States last year were both 9-to-0 victories. And now the firm, alongside the poverty law firm Bet Tzedek Legal Services, has won a trial verdict in a human trafficking case.The firm said in a release that last Friday a jury in Los Angeles Superior Court awarded its client, an Indonesian woman named Suminarti Sayuti Yusuf, $768,000, including $500,000 in punitive damages. Yusuf alleged she was the victim of human trafficking at the hands of a wealthy Southern California couple who forced her to work 16 hours a day, subjected her to verbal abuse, and didn't allow her to leave the house to pray at a mosque or visit the Indonesian consulate. (The wife in the case pled guilty to a felony in connection to Yusuf's allegations, while the husband pled guilty to a misdemeanor, according to their defense attorney.) O'Melveny said the verdict is believed to the first ever under the California Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
Kevin Kish, director of Bet Tzedek's Employment Rights Project, said in a statement that the "award sends the clearest possible message that Ms. Yusuf was, pure and simple, the victim of slavery, and human trafficking in any form is unacceptable and will not be tolerated."
Paul McNamara, who led the O'Melveny trial team, said the "verdict sets a new standard for enforcement of this law and establishes precedent under a never-before litigated measure."
Mark Hathaway of the Law Offices of Mark Werksman, who represented the defendants at trial, said that the felony conviction of the wife is being contested due to prosecutorial misconduct. "We are very disappointed and look forward to a different result on the retrial," said Hathaway. "The defendant's criminal conviction was obtained by prosecutorial misconduct and this shows what can happen when an individual is up against a large law firm, community organizers, and a questionable prosecution."
Last summer we reported on another big development in human trafficking civil litigation when a Wisconsin federal court judge allowed a suit to proceed on RICO grounds.
