SlaveryMap

Darnestown, Maryland, United States

George Udeozor, 52, formerly of Darnestown, Md., was sentenced today for holding a 14-year-old Nigerian girl in involuntary servitude, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Grace Chung Becker and U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein. U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte sentenced Udeozor to 97 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Udeozor was also ordered to pay $110,249.60 in restitution to the victim. ccording to his plea agreement, in September 1996, George Udeozor traveled to Nigeria and, using the passport of his oldest daughter, smuggled a 14 year old Nigerian girl to his home in Maryland. He and his then-wife, Dr. Adaobi Stella Udeozor, used the girl as an unpaid domestic servant and child care provider for their six children for approximately five years, from October 1996 to Oct. 28, 2001. The victim cooked, cleaned the home, did laundry and took care of the Udeozor children. During that time, the victim was physically abused. The Udeozors did not send the victim to school and did not pay the victim or her family for her work. At times, the victim also worked in Adaobi Stella Udeozor’s medical offices, for which she did not receive compensation. The Udeozors compelled the victim’s labor by inflicting verbal and physical abuse on her, including when she purportedly did not do her work correctly. They threatened the victim with arrest and deportation if she left the home. Additionally, from sometime after the fall of 1997 when the victim was just 15 years old, until the time George Udeozor left the United States in late 1999 to return to Nigeria, George Udeozor had sexual relations with the victim in the Udeozor home. He warned the victim not to tell anyone about those episodes.

Location
United States · Darnestown, Maryland · 2008 (location generalized to protect survivors)
Response & intervention
Dr. Adaobi Stella Udeozor, 49, of Darnestown, Md., was convicted in November 2004 by a federal jury following a six-week trial and sentenced to 87 months in prison for conspiracy to commit involuntary servitude and harboring an alien for financial gain. ________________________ This case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mythili Raman of the District of Maryland and Trial Attorney Kathleen Monaghan of the Criminal Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. On Oct. 28, 2001, the victim called the police, who took her to a homeless shelter. George Udeozor was extradited from Nigeria in February 2008. During her victim impact statement, she said she has obtained her general equivalency diploma, is studying criminal justice and hopes to combat the abuse she endured. No further information could be found regarding the services received by the victim. http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2008/October/08-ag-909.html

Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). Use “Report a problem” below to add a source or flag an issue.

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