An Indian diplomat accused of lying about how much she paid her housekeeper was asked to leave the United States on Thursday after she was indicted on two criminal charges and Indian authorities refused to waive immunity, authorities said.
Devyani Khobragade, 39, was charged by a federal grand jury in New York City with visa fraud and making false statements in a case that has triggered an outcry in India. She’s accused of fraudulently obtaining a work visa for her New York housekeeper.
Khobragade was expected to leave the country Thursday night, a U.S. government official in Washington said.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. accepted India’s request to accredit Khobragade to the United Nations, which confers broader immunity than what she enjoyed as a consular official. It would be almost unprecedented for the U.S. to deny such a request unless the diplomat was a national security risk.
The United States asked the government of India to waive the immunity, but the Indians refused, the official said.
The United States then “requested her departure” from the country, the official said.
Authorities say Khobragade claimed to pay her Indian maid $4,500 per month but actually gave her far less than minimum wage. The indictment said Khobragade had made multiple false representations to U.S. authorities, or caused them to be made, to obtain a visa for a personal domestic worker.
Her arrest last month sparked outrage in India after revelations that she was strip-searched and thrown in a cell with other criminal defendants before being released on $250,000 bail.
Khobragade, India’s deputy consul general in New York, has maintained her innocence.
In a letter, prosecutors said there was no need for an arraignment because Khobragade had “very recently” been given diplomatic immunity status; they also mistakenly said she’d already left the United States. But Daniel Arshack, a lawyer for Khobragade, said in a statement soon after that his client was home with her children.
The charges will remain pending until she can be brought to court to face them.
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