Landlord agrees to plead guilty


BOB EGELKO AND JIM HERRON ZAMORA OF THE EXAMINER STAFF
<mailto:zamora@examiner.com>
Oct. 25, 2000
©2000 San Francisco Examiner <http://www.sfgate.com/examiner/>
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/NEWS7416.dtl>
Will Reddy admit to smuggling girls?
OAKLAND - A federal prosecutor says a Berkeley landlord has agreed t o plead
guilty to charges in connection with the smuggling of immigrants from India,
one of whom died in an apartment last November.
In addition, four relatives of Lakireddy Bali Reddy have agreed to plead
guilty to charges arising from the case, the prosecutor said.
Reddy, who owns about 1,100 apartment units in the East Bay, will enter a
guilty plea Monday along with one of his brothers and two sons, Assistant
U.S. Attorney John Kennedy said in a new document filed in federal court in
Oakland. He said Reddy's sister-in-law would plead guilty next Tuesday.
Kennedy did not specify the charges but said they would be spelled out in a
new charging document. He said the plea agreements would be filed in U.S.
District Court by Thursday.
Reddy, 63, was arrested in January on charges of illegally bringing in at
least three teenage girls from his home village of Velvadam so he could have
sex with them.
The case came to light when one of the girls, a 17-year-old later found to
be pregnant, died of carbon monoxide poisoning in one of his apartments last
November. Her 15-year-old sister was overcome with the gas but lived. Reddy
has not been charged in connection with the incident.
The landlord's son Vijay Kumar Lakireddy has also been indicted on charges
of conspiring with his father to bring in illegal immigrants.
The others named in Kennedy's document have not been charged. They are
Reddy's son Prasad Lakireddy; Reddy's younger brother, Jayprakash Lakireddy,
and the brother's wife, Annapurna Lakireddy.
Annapurna Lakireddy's attorney, Ann Moorman, said Tuesday her client, a
naturalized U.S. citizen, would be charged with a minor immigration
violation unrelated to the allegations against Reddy.
In a letter to the court in March, Prasad Lakireddy, a Berkeley resident who
emigrated to the United States in 1976, spoke of his father's frequent
donations of food to the homeless and called him "the most kindhearted
person in this world. He has never hurt or refused to help anyone in his
life."
Jayprakash Lakireddy, who lives in Oakland, also sent a letter in support of
Reddy's request for release on $10 million bail, which was secured by real
estate owned by the landlord's relatives.
"Were it not for my brother, my family would still be in India and not have
access to the breadth and quality of opportunities both social and
educational in America," he wrote.
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