Contributed by: Yuliya Gureyeva, Azerbaijan National VAW Monitor

On 14 December 2005, former Baku resident wrestler Asker (Oskar) Mammadov was sentenced in the Brooklyn Federal Court. He pled guilty to bringing to the U.S. women from Azerbaijan for legal work in massage salon and then was forcing them into the prostitution. In his last speech Mamedov recognized that he was trapped into this business but said he was not beating, but protecting these women.

His advocate Ernest Hammer tried to repudiate letters written by three victims, which were sent to the court one day before sentencing.

The attorney Tom Firestone in response reminded that as a result of the hard work, one of the sex-slaves suffered of vaginal cyst, but Mamedov did not allow her to attend the doctor. One of the Azeri woman wrote: “I can never tell my family or man with whom I will be meting [sic] in the future, what happened to me. I just want to live the normal life and forget about this dark time. Just imagine, [a] stranger is having sex with you, he is touching your body, while you have a headache and the whole body is covered in bruises. I cannot find proper words to express this horror.”

Finally Mamedov was sentenced to 10 years and 4 months of imprisonment. After imprisonment Mamedov will be deported from the U.S. even though his wife has U.S. citizenship.    

Full version of the text in Russian is available here.

Compiled from: "Former Baku Resident Was Forcing His Countrywomen into the Prostitution in the U.S.," RussianNY.com, 23 December 2005.