Background
Reddy was born in 1937 in the village of Velvadam, in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, India.
investor Landlord Transnational crime figure
Reddy was born in 1937 in the village of Velvadam, in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, India.
He completed his Bachelors in Science and Bachelors in Technology degrees from Osmania University in Hyderabad. He attended the University of California, Berkeley on a scholarship in 1960, graduating with a master"s degree in chemical engineering.
He is a Berkeley, California real estate mogul, and an overseas philanthropist who in 2001 was convicted of human trafficking, conspiracy to commit immigration fraud, and filing a false tax return. Reddy worked for a private company, before becoming an entrepreneur in the real estate and restaurant industries. He opened his first restaurant in 1975 and by 2000 he owned real estate assets valued at United States$69 million and had income of United States$1 million per month from his 1,000 rental properties.
Criminal activities
On January 18, 2000, after the accidental death of a pregnant teenage girl in 1999, Reddy was arrested by federal prosecutors for "importing and employing illegal immigrants, and using the young girls as his concubines".
In March 2001, Reddy and "two of his relatives" pled guilty to the charges. After a joint investigation by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Labor, and the Berkeley Police Department, Reddy was sentenced to eight years in prison and United States$2 million in restitution.
In 2004, the Reddy estate paid United States$8.9 million to survivors as a result of a civil suit. Reddy was released April 2, 2008, and is a registered sex offender in the state of California.
Lakireddy Bali Reddy was the subject of the book Slaves of Berkeley: The Shocking Story of Human Trafficking in the United States by Tim Huddleston.
According to Huddleston:
Lakireddy Bali Reddy was a noted successful businessman. He owned restaurants and real estate all over Northern California and made over $1,000,000 a month from his income properties. He also had a dirty little secret to his success..he forced Indian girls into slavery.
All was going well for Lakireddy until a carbon monoxide leak led to the death of one of his underaged slaves.
Surprisingly, it wasn"t a police investigation that led to his arrest, but a story in a school newspaper. This is the story of the human trafficking ring that shook a nation and opened the door for reform in the United States.
Reddy"s crimes have also been cited in the books Hidden Slaves: Forced Labor in the United States, Body Evidence: Intimate Violence against South Asian Women in America, Shout Out: Women of Color Respond to Violence, New Slavery: A Reference Handbook, Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade—and How We Can Fight lieutenant, and Multicultural Jurisprudence: Comparative Perspectives on the Cultural Defense. His case reportedly inspired changes to California"s human trafficking laws in 2005 and was part of Congressional testimony on the proposed Save America Comprehensive Immigration Acting of 2007, as well as the report of the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery Task Force.
Philanthropy
Lakireddy Bali Reddy is a philanthropist in the Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh, India.