© Jefferson Siegel/New York Daily NewsDevyani Khobragade, left, leaves Manhattan Federal Court after her arrest Thursday for allegedly cheating her housekeeper and babysitter by paying her $3.31 an hour and lying on a visa application.
Devyani Khobragade thought she had found the right employee in a woman named Sangeeta Richard. U.S. labor rules required that the sitter be paid $9.75 an hour.
But authorities allege that Khobragade drew up two contracts - one with the proper amount and one with the actual amount paid (about $3.31 an hour for a 40-hour workweek, a wage that would often amount to much less because of longer hours worked).
Khobragade's arrest last week on visa fraud charges and her subsequent treatment by U.S. authorities have touched off a major diplomatic row with the United States, India's ally, culminating with the New Delhi government demanding an unconditional apology and curtailing U.S. diplomats' privileges and security measures.
Comment: 5000 nuclear weapons in the arsenal, and a lot of empty rhetoric being bandied about: making the world safe from terror attacks, 'war on terror', etc. while, simultaneously, this same government strategically, surgically strikes upon civilian populations, funds, arms and facilitates atrocities, illegal military occupiers, mercenaries and extremists, colludes with and supports perpetrators of crimes against humanity in other countries, and insistently seeks to build up its own nuclear defense shield. No hypocrisy there, right?