A Chilean nanny says she was forced into virtual slavery by an Upper East Side couple who denied her food and medicine — and imprisoned her in a room with their children.
In a bombshell lawsuit, Felicitas del Carmen Villanueva Garnica, 50, claims she was physically abused every day by the three brats she was caring for.
Her employers, Chilean aristocrats Malu Custer Edwards and Micky Hurley, “trafficked” her to the United States “under false pretenses and for the purpose of unlawfully compelling her to care for their young children,” the Manhattan federal court lawsuit claims.
The hellish three months of “forced labor” was nothing more than “involuntary servitude,” Villanueva alleges in court papers.
She was constantly berated, belittled, told not to speak to anyone outside the family, and ordered never to leave the house.
Hurley would lock her in the room with the children, and Villanueva “sometimes ended up falling asleep on the floor of whatever room they were locked in,” court papers allege.
“He would close the door and say, ‘Stay there until I say so,’ ” she recalled.
In three months of 12-hour days spent caring for the children, she was given just a single day off, she claims.
The socialite couple — Edwards is a graphic designer and Hurley an interior decorator — promised to pay her $10 per hour, but gave her only $800 monthly, equal to just $2 per hour.
When Villanueva protested, Edwards replied, “No other nannies in the US make more than $700 per month,” according to court papers.
Villanueva’s charges — ages 6, 8 and 10 — repeatedly hit her and once slammed a refrigerator door on her head so hard she nearly lost consciousness, she charges in her lawsuit.
Villanueva began working for the couple in Chile in December 2010, when an employment agency sent her to the family, whose roots run deep in Chilean society.
Edwards, 29, descends from Agustín Edwards McClure, a Chilean diplomat and publisher who led the League of Nations in 1922. Hurley, 35, is related to the country’s founding settlers and is the stepson of opera set designer Pier Luigi Samaritani.
“All Chile knows them,” Villanueva said of Edwards’ family. “They come from a family with lots of resources.”
When Edwards decided a few weeks later to enroll in design courses at the New School in New York City, Villanueva agreed to follow the family. They asked her to work for two years and said she would be rewarded with higher pay, health insurance, medical care, food, clothes and lodging, according to court papers.
But she arrived to an American nightmare.
“In Chile, they behaved very nicely. When we came to the US, that’s when the situation changed completely. I honestly didn’t know. I didn’t even imagine it,” she said.
The couple has denied the allegations.
“The claims are completely without merit and will be fully refuted in court,” said their lawyer, Robin Alperstein.
Even her arrival was fraught with risk. Villanueva claims in the suit that the family procured an illegal passport for her and that Edwards coached her through encounters with immigration officials in Chile and the United States.
The day the family first settled in Soho in January 2011, one of the children hit Villanueva so hard “the glasses fell off her face,” according to court papers.
“The children would slap and hit her on a daily basis,” including the youngest, who hit her with a chair, Villanueva claims.
Villanueva began taking photos of her injuries, because, she says, the mother refused to believe her.
The nanny noticed the kids got more aggressive when they were hungry — which was frequently, Villanueva claims in her suit.
Edwards “bought only small amounts of milk, yogurt, eggs and bread and ‘nothing else,’ ” court papers say. Her husband once scolded Villanueva in a rage for eating the “last piece of bread.”
Breakfast was usually nothing more than a small teacup of milk and a piece of bread smaller than a coaster, Villanueva alleged.
But the couple — who bragged in a 2009 New York magazine feature about a family trip to St. Lucia and their other international travels — rarely missed a meal themselves.
They “spent lavishly on personal items, including clothing, dining out and Edwards’ education,” court papers say. They were regulars at the famed Soho bistro Balthazar.
They also moved twice, to East 75th Street and then East 88th Street.
After two months, Villanueva begged to be allowed to go home, but Edwards allegedly refused, telling the nanny she had signed a contract, Villanueva claims in court papers.
“They brought me here to mistreat me,” Villanueva told The Post. “They were telling me I don’t have any rights of any sort.”
They brought me here to mistreat me. They were telling me I don’t have any rights of any sort.
- Felicitas del Carmen Villanueva Garnica
She was given one day off, on President’s Day 2011, when the mother allegedly told her to leave despite the snow and cold.
Villanueva immediately made her way to the Chilean Consulate but was heartbroken to find that it was closed for the holiday.
She went to a cellphone store, where a clerk listened to her story and urged her to get help, selling her a phone and showing her how to use it, Villanueva claims in court papers.
She used the phone to contact the nonprofit crime-victims group Safe Horizon, but it was another month before she could bring herself to escape.
Villanueva walked out March 14, 2011, the day she was hit with the fridge door.
“I fell on the floor, he hit me so hard,” she recalled. “I was afraid I’d lose consciousness. I said, ‘I can’t tolerate this.’ ”
She marched out without any of her belongings, walking past a stunned Edwards. Villanueva says she got on a bus without money or knowing where it was headed.
“I called 911; I called 311,” she said.
Eventually, a 311 operator helped her figure out how to get to Safe Horizon.
Villanueva, who suffers from hypertension but claims she was never allowed to refill her meds while living with her overseers, finally was able to see a physician. She said she was diagnosed with encephalitis, post-traumatic stress disorder and pedophobia, a fear of children, according to the lawsuit.
In July 2011, the state Department of Labor ordered the couple to pay Villanueva $6,302 in back wages.
Still in Manhattan and applying for a visa, Villanueva dreams of one day earning enough money to help her elderly mother in Chile build a well for potable water.