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Daily Planet Staff 

OAKLAND – Berkeley landlord Lakireddy Bali Reddy and his son Vijay Kumar Lakireddy are likely to face expanded charges, U.S. Attorney John Kennedy said in federal court Tuesday. 

Reddy is charged with conspiring with his son to bring foreign workers to the United States under false pretenses. He is further charged with exploiting the workers for their labor and using women, including minors, for sexual purposes. 

In a motion that was to be heard before U.S. District Court Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong, attorneys for the indicted men asked the U.S. Attorney’s Office to be more specific in their allegations. 

Kennedy told the judge, however, that he was preparing a superceding indictment and that there was more to the case than had been previously brought out in court documents. 

“The continuing investigation in this matter will result in expanded charges,” Kennedy said, explaining that it would take two to three months to complete the investigation. The investigation has already yielded 9,000 pages of documentation and audio tapes, Kennedy told the court. 

The attorneys for the prosecution and defense will return to court at 9 a.m. June 13 to report on the status of the case. 

In a separate ruling, the judge denied the defense’s request to hold disciplinary hearings regarding statements made to the court by Berkeley City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque. The defense contends Albuquerque “grossly misrepresented the facts” in her role representing the city of Berkeley as a friend of the court. 

The allegation had to do with the Nov. 24, 1999, death by carbon monoxide poisoning of Chanti Jyotsna Devi Prattipati. The Indian national is alleged to have been 17 years old at the time of her death, which Berkeley police ruled as accidental. 

Prattipati is one of the women alleged to have been brought to this country by Reddy and Lakireddy for sexual exploitation by Reddy. She had been living with her younger sister and an older roommate in an apartment at 2020 Bancroft Way at the time of her death. The apartment is owned by Reddy. 

Based on preliminary information given her by a police investigator, a man who was Reddy, or who resembled Reddy, was at the scene on Nov. 24, trying to take the unconscious Prattipati away in a Reddy Realty van. Albuquerque told the court that there was only one 911 call made at the time, not from Reddy or his associates, but from a passer-by. 

Later, police found that, in fact, two calls had been made to police, one of which came from a man in the apartment where Prattipati was living. 

First the judge chided defense attorneys for including the criticism of Albuquerque in a motion that requested handwriting samples. 

“The statements were not reckless,” Armstrong said. “At most, they were negligent.” 

The judge went on to note that the facts as presented were based on statements made by the lead police investigator, which, she said, are not always reliable in the early stages of an investigation. 

“The court denies the defendants’ request,” Armstrong concluded. 

In response to the request for handwriting samples, defense attorneys said the samples have been turned over to the prosecution. 

Also, in recent written motions, the defense and prosecution both asked the court – and the court agreed – to preserve tissue samples from the 10-day-old fetus found when the coroner examined Prattipati.