Woman in Thai Servant Case Jailed by Judge

A Woodland Hills woman accused of holding two illegal immigrants from Thailand as indentured servants was jailed by a federal magistrate Friday after she failed to come up with collateral for her $500,000 bond.

Supawan Verapol, 52, had been free since her arrest on March 27, when three prominent members of the Thai community promised to put up their homes as security.

But their promises did not materialize, forcing Supawan to miss a final deadline for securing her bond.

At a hastily arranged hearing Friday before U.S. Magistrate Robert N. Block, Supawan’s lawyer, William H. Randall, tried to substitute the promised collateral with two other properties.

But Assistant U.S. Atty. Jack Weiss objected, contending that the switch “has to border on fraud on this court.”

He suggested that Supawan probably was the real owner of the properties, though they were being offered in the names of others.

For one property in Canoga Park, he noted Supawan produced a quitclaim deed signed by one of her alleged victims, Thonglim Khamphiranon, 42. According to a government affidavit made public previously, Supawan allegedly put the woman’s name on the property to fend off foreclosure.

However, the quitclaim deed transferring the title from Khamphiranon to the person guaranteeing Supawan’s bond was dated Jan. 16--two days after Khamphiranon had fled Supawan’s home and was under protection in a women’s shelter.

“There’s just no way she could have signed that document,” Weiss told the magistrate. “It’s clear this is a sham transaction.”

Weiss said that the other property offered to secure the bond was registered to a man who says he does not consider himself to be the real owner. That property in Woodland Hills is Supawan’s current residence.

Without ruling on the government’s claim of sham property transactions, Block ordered Supawan taken into custody and jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

He told Supawan’s lawyer that after receiving two extensions she had failed to meet his April 30 deadline for submitting the promised properties as collateral.

Randall, her attorney, said he would file a emergency motion Monday appealing Block’s ruling.

Supawan, a presence in Thai American society and the operator of several Thai restaurants, was named in a four-count federal grand jury indictment charging her with harboring and employing the two illegal immigrants for more than six years.

The two immigrants, both women, told investigators that they were forced to work from dawn to midnight, seven days a week, and that their passports were seized, their mail was censored and they were barred from attending a Buddhist temple or from reading local Thai language newspapers.

Supawan has denied their allegations to reporters, saying that far from keeping the women in servitude, she befriended them, gave them money and took them shopping.