Berkeley Landlord Depicted As Overlord of India Village
Debra Levi Holtz, Chuck Squatriglia, Chronicle Staff Writers
Saturday, January 22, 2000
©2000 San Francisco Chronicle

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/01/22/MN83831.DTL


BERKELEY -- Lakireddy Bali Reddy, the Berkeley landlord accused of bringing at least three young girls from India for sex, built financial empires on two continents.

His real estate holdings in Berkeley alone are worth more than $50 million, and his power and influence in the South Asian community in the Bay Area extends all the way to his native village in southern India. The $1.2 million bail his lawyer requested for him yesterday is a pittance, prosecutors say, for a man who arrived in Berkeley 40 years ago as an engineering student and became one of the city's biggest landlords.

Reddy is the principal partner in the family-run real estate firm Reddy Realty, one of the largest owners of residential property in Berkeley. Reddy collects more than $1 million in rent from tenants each month and that does not include income from his commercial properties or his restaurants, Pasand Madras Cuisine in Berkeley and Santa Clara.

Reddy was born in Vijawada, a town of 3,000 people in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. He went back there often and, authorities say, it is where he recruited workers for his businesses and the three girls he is accused of molesting and bringing to Berkeley -- charges his lawyer says are false.

Those who have been interviewed by investigators describe Vijawada as ``like a company town in which (Reddy) is the president of the family-owned corporation,'' said Berkeley City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque.

``The people who live there are the lowest of the lowest caste,'' said Albuquerque, who is of Indian descent and has served as a cultural adviser to law enforcement officials. ``They are the poorest people to begin with, and the economic and social control Mr. Reddy wields over them is really great.''

The teenage girls Reddy is accused of molesting worked as cleaners at Reddy's properties in the village from the time they were very young. Their parents either sold them to Reddy because of economic hardship or turned them over to him out of shame and fear, according to investigators.

Reddy's elder son, Prasad Lakireddy, insists that the depiction of his father as a village lord is a gross exaggeration.

He said Reddy earned a master's degree in chemical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1961 and went to work for a chemical firm in Richmond.

Reddy quit the engineering business in 1974 when his four brothers and sister came to the United States. Together they opened Pasand Madras Cuisine at the Emeryville Public Market. Four years later, in 1979, they moved the operation to Berkeley.

Reddy started his realty business about the same time and now controls more than 1,000 rental units in Berkeley as well as others in the East Bay.

His reputation as a landlord is that he has ``a cavalier attitude about accuracy,'' said Marjorie Gelb, director of Berkeley's rent stabilization program.

Officials said Reddy Realty had been warned about giving misinformation to tenants, many of whom are foreign born or students, or illegally evicting them and keeping their security deposits.

The Reddys make more than five times as many errors on official forms as any other landlord in the city, rent board officials said. Last fall, the board sent mailings to all of Reddy's tenants informing them of their rights.

Indian business owners in Berkeley worried yesterday that Reddy's alleged exploitation of workers and sexual abuse of young girls would stain their community.

``We feel really ashamed,'' said Sudhakar Reddy, a Berkeley restaurant owner who is not related to Reddy. ``It's a shame on the community. He's a very educated person, a very capable person. He could have been a model.''

Kirpal Khanna, owner of Bazaar of India and president of the University Avenue Business Association, said, ``People may think all successful Indian business people do the same thing. We don't want to be labeled like this.''


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