Landlord's Pal Charged in Teens' Smuggling
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, March 17, 2000
©2000 San Francisco Chronicle

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/03/17/MN98712.DTL


BERKELEY -- A man who posed as the father of two Indian sisters poisoned by carbon monoxide was indicted by a federal grand jury yesterday on charges of smuggling them in with the help of a Berkeley landlord and his son.

Venkateswara Vemireddy was charged with two counts of helping bring aliens illegally into the United States from India. He was also indicted on a charge of conspiring with Berkeley landlord Lakireddy Bali Reddy, 62, and his son, Vijay Lakireddy, 30, to smuggle the teenage sisters by submitting false visa applications.

Vemireddy, a civil engineer, has not been arrested and could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Reddy, Berkeley's wealthiest landlord, has already been indicted on federal charges that he brought young Indian girls to Berkeley for sex and cheap labor. Reddy and his son also face charges of submitting false visa applications that allowed them to import the girls.

Two girls who arrived from India last summer, 17-year-old Chanti Prattipati and her 15-year-old sister, were overcome by carbon monoxide fumes in November in a Bancroft Way apartment where authorities said Reddy had sex with them. Prattipati died accidentally from the gas, and her sister survived.

Authorities said Reddy met Vemireddy in India and lent him and his sister $6,500 to come to the United States while acting as husband and wife and as parents of the two teenagers, who were brought to Berkeley under assumed names.

In exchange, Lakireddy, the owner of the software company Active Tech Solutions in Berkeley, allegedly submitted a fraudulent visa application in March 1998 that allowed Vemireddy to come to the United States last April, purportedly to work as a company analyst. Instead, Vemireddy worked at Reddy's restaurant in Berkeley, authorities said.

©2000 San Francisco Chronicle Page A24