Indonesian Slavery Trial : Held Virtual Prisoner, Servant Testifies

A hotel worker who was recruited in Indonesia for employment in Southern California testified Thursday about how he lived as a virtual prisoner for 7 1/2 months with a 90-year-old Los Angeles woman who never paid him.

Nyoman Raka Mgakan, 24, told a U.S. District Court jury in Los Angeles that he worked as a domestic “cleaning the house, cooking, (doing) laundry and cutting the grass” at the home of Toba Mussry, with virtually no time off.

“I got off once . . . for only four hours,” he testified through an interpreter.

Mussry forbade him to have outside contact with strangers, warning him that the “police would probably arrest me,” he said.

“I didn’t know where to go,” he testified. “I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t have any money to go anywhere.”

He eventually left, after complaining about his treatment at Mussry’s home.

Mgakan is one of 11 Indonesians expected to testify at the trial of a son and a daughter of Toba Mussry--Nasim Mussry, 57, of Beverly Hills, and Elsa Singman, 54, of Los Angeles--who are accused of being part of a ring that illegally brought Indonesians into this country and then allegedly sold them into involuntary servitude for as much as $3,000 each.

The two were among 10 people indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles in 1982, after FBI agents seized 30 Indonesians who they alleged were being held as slaves and working as servants.

Two Still Fugitives

Two of those indicted, David Mussry, a brother of the defendants, and Mordecai Sassoon, are still fugitives, federal authorities said. Five others pleaded guilty to reduced charges and were given probation. Charges against a sixth person were dropped. Toba Mussry was not charged in the case.

Mgakan’s testimony was much like the tearful revelations from the trial’s first witness.

Ni Putu Kartini, 29, testified on Wednesday that when she arrived at Los Angeles International Airport from Indonesia, her passport, return ticket and her Indonesian identification card were taken from her. She was then forced to work as a live-in servant for Toba Mussry for three months without pay.

Sobbing, she said she worked as much as 15 hours a day and got little to eat.

“Weren’t you given food?” asked Assistant U.S. Atty. Enrique Romero.

“No, it was not enough,” she replied through an interpreter. “That’s why every day I steal food. I’m hungry. I was working hard. I have to eat.”

After three months, Kartini said, “They asked me to mail a letter, and I ran away” to the home of a friend.

She said she went back to Mussry’s home but ran away again a week later.

Defense attorneys in opening arguments said the Indonesians came willingly to the United States and were free to go home.