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Washington (ANTARA News) - A wealthy New York woman was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Thursday for keeping two Indonesian women as slaves, forcing them to work up to 20 hours a day for years after confiscating their passports.

Varsha Sabhnani, 46, was convicted with her husband, Mahender Sabhnani, in December of forced labor, peonage, harbouring aliens, document servitude and conspiracy. He is to be sentenced on Friday, also by theUS federal court in Central Islip, on New York state's Long Island, DPA reported.

The owners of a lucrative world-wide perfume manufacturing and distribution business were arrested in May 2007 following an investigation that found the couple kept the Indonesian women in their Muttontown, New York, home.

One of the victims was found in a Dunkin Donuts store wearing rags and with open wounds behind her ears. The second woman was found hiding in a closet under the basement stairs during the execution of a search warrant.

During the trial it was revealed that Varsha Sabhnani physically and psychologically abused both victims by beating, stabbing, scalding, cutting, starving them, depriving them of sleep, preventing contact with family members, and threatening to have the victims and their family members jailed.

The two Indonesian women, identified as Samirah, 51, and Enung, 47, were brought to the United States, one in 2002 and the other in 2005, with promises of 200 dollars pay a month for housekeeping duties.

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