“Yes! Thank you!”
Enung, a 46-year-old Indonesian maid, broke into a huge smile yesterday when told that her millionaire employers – a Long Island couple she knew as “the mister” and “the missus” – were convicted of torturing her and a co-worker and now face 40 years in prison in an unthinkable case of modern-day slavery.
The petite woman and her fellow housekeeper, Samirah, 51, also Indonesian, watched the verdict on TV.
But since they don’t speak much English, they apparently didn’t understand the outcome.
The women, who have been taken in by Catholic Charities, came out and waved when a Post reporter and photographer drove up.
The missus and the mister were found guilty and are going to jail, the reporter said.
At that, Enung broke into her big smile.
She whispered something in an Indonesian dialect to Samirah, who also smiled.
Varsha “Cruella” Sabhnani, 35, and her husband, Mahender, 51, were convicted of beating, scalding, stabbing and starving the women – whom they paid only $100 a month – at their $2 million mansion in Muttontown, LI.
As the jury foreman said the word “guilty” on charge after charge in Central Islip, LI, federal court, a weeping Varsha put her head on her husband’s chest and said, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
The couple’s four children, who were sitting in the first row of the courtroom, wept.
When the verdict reading was over, their daughter Dakshina, 20, who is a diabetic, suddenly slumped backward. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted, leaning against her sister, Tina, 21.
Varsha rushed over and frantically began trying to revive her daughter. “Please! Please be OK!” she wailed. “Mommy will be there for you.”
Then Varsha fainted.
The two were taken to the emergency room of Southside Hospital in Bayshore, where they were treated and released. Judge Arthur Spatt said the girl had suffered from diabetic shock.
The Sabhnanis each face a maximum penalty of 40 years behind bars on charges that include forced labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude, and harboring aliens.
The feds may also try to seize their mansion, from which they run a million-dollar international perfume business.
Jeffrey Hoffman, Varsha’s lawyer, said he would appeal.
Noting that Samirah and Enung had both wept on the witness stand, he said, “I think the emotions triumphed over the evidence.”
The verdict ended a saga that began last Mother’s Day, when Samirah wandered into a Dunkin’ Donuts with rags on her back and wounds oozing from her ears. There were scars all over her body.
When cops arrived at the mansion, they found Enung cowering in a closet under the basement stairs.
On the witness stand, the women said they had been starved and forced to work 18 hours a day and sleep on mats in the kitchen.
They said they were beaten with brooms and umbrellas, slashed with knives, forced to climb stairs and take freezing showers as punishment for minor misdeeds like sleeping late. Samirah said she had to eat dozens of chili peppers as a punishment.
The defense contended the two women concocted the story as a way of escaping the house and getting green cards to stay in the United States.
They also claimed the housekeepers practiced witchcraft and may have cut themselves as part of an Indonesian self-mutilation ritual.
Prosecutor Mark Lesko called the women’s ordeal a case of “modern-day slavery.”
“This did not happen in the 1800s,” he said. “This happened in the 21st century. This happened in Muttontown, New York.”