High-ranking Turkish diplomats charged in Washington DC with human trafficking and fraud

Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm

The second-highest diplomat at the Turkish Embassy in Washington DC and his wife, also a diplomat, are accused of human trafficking, fraud, unjust enrichment, breach of contract and violation of American labor and wage laws.

In a civil lawsuit filed on May 5 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Hüsnü Sinan Ertay, the former deputy chief of mission at the Turkish Embassy, ​​and his wife Anıl Özge Ertay, a diplomatic adviser, were accused of exploiting their housekeeper and nanny, Filipino citizen Sharon Thomas Agdipa.

The diplomatic couple lived in a 1,300-square-foot, $1 million townhouse in a gated community on Embassy Park Drive NW in Washington's Wesley Heights neighborhood. They are accused of trafficking Sharon Thomas Agdipa, who claims she was lured from the Philippines to the United States with the promise of a job, fair pay and a private room, where she was then forced to perform forced labor.

According to her lawyers, she endured emotional and physical suffering, was denied regular meals, was denied her own bedroom, was severely underpaid, threatened with deportation and was frequently subjected to verbal attacks. She was also forbidden from associating with other nannies.

The two diplomats are no longer based at the Turkish Embassy, ​​but were transferred to senior positions at the Turkish Foreign Ministry headquarters in Ankara earlier this year or late last year. Mr Ertay is currently a department head in the Directorate General for East Asia.

Ms. Ertay is also based in Ankara, where she heads the North America Department of the Turkish Foreign Ministry's General Directorate. Her responsibilities include meeting with U.S. officials, academics and think tank representatives.

Civil complaint filed on May 5 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against Hüsnü Sinan Ertay and his wife Anıl Özge Ertay:

Husnu_Sinan_Ertay

Sources from the Turkish diplomatic community who spoke to Nordic Monitor expressed little surprise at the allegations, pointing to the nature and character of the Ertay couple. “Mrs. Ertay is known among her colleagues as a malicious person,” said a source who wished to remain anonymous. Other sources claimed that her husband owed his position in the Foreign Ministry largely to his father's influential role as deputy undersecretary for personnel affairs.

According to the complaint, Agdipa's ordeal began in November 2019, when Ms. Ertay offered her a job in Washington, D.C. However, when Agdipa began working for the couple in February 2020, her duties went beyond caring for their five-year-old son and included various household chores, from cleaning and cooking to gardening.

Although her contract stipulated a 35-hour work week at an hourly rate of $14, Agdipa worked over 80 hours per week and had to be on call 24 hours a day to accommodate the couple's requests. She received no overtime pay, which was a clear violation of the terms of her contract.

The lawsuit alleges that the couple forced Agdipa to repay part of her salary by instructing her to withdraw cash from an ATM and return it to them.

For example, in June 2020, the Ertays initially gave Agdipa two payments totaling $1,960 for her monthly salary, as stipulated in the contract. However, shortly thereafter, they drove her to an ATM, where they forced her to withdraw $1,350 and hand it over to them. As a result, Agdipa received only $610 for that month.

Over the course of the 15 months that Agdipa worked for the couple, she had to repay about a third of her total wages, which amounted to $9,450.

The couple abused her, verbally abused her, threatened to evict her, and inflicted emotional and psychological stress on her.

The Turkish couple also took steps to prevent Agdipa from raising the alarm when she spoke to the Office of Foreign Missions (OFM) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was conducting a standard audit of their treatment and the couple's compliance with the terms of their contract. The Ertays were present during the phone call with the OFM and instructed Agdipa to falsely claim that she was receiving the agreed salary and payment terms, despite knowing that they had not complied with the contract.

When the minimum wage for domestic workers was raised in July 2020, the Ertays issued a revised contract for Agdipa that took the higher salary into account. In practice, however, the terms of this updated contract were never fully implemented, just as with the original contract.

At times, the Ertay couple threatened to call the police or immigration authorities and say they would deport her if she complained about working conditions or tried to leave the job and take up another job.

“The Ertays exploited Ms. Agdipa’s immigration status and her ignorance of U.S. labor laws to manipulate and control her, and threatened her with further harm if she did not comply with these demands,” the lawsuit states.

In addition, Agdipa was denied regular meals and was not allowed to prepare her own food, as well as medical care and sick leave when she needed it, in violation of her contract.

Although the contract stipulated that she would receive private room and board, Agdipa was assigned a windowless basement. This room was regularly entered by the Turkish Deputy Chief of Mission, who used it as a makeshift toilet and frequently used the bathroom there, although there were bathrooms on the upper floors of the house.

“Mr. Ertay required Ms. Agdipa to vacate the basement during the early morning and late evening hours so that he could use the bathroom to get ready before going to work and again when he returned home from work,” the complaint states.

She was also forbidden from making friends or speaking with other nannies in the neighborhood, and was reprimanded if the Ertays caught her socializing with others. “The Ertays created an environment of isolation and constant surveillance,” the lawsuit states.

On May 5, 2021, the abuse escalated to the point where Agdipa felt she had no choice but to flee. She left most of her belongings behind and sought refuge with a Filipino acquaintance in the neighborhood. The labor attaché of the Philippine Embassy in Washington intervened after being informed of the horrific ordeal Agdipa had endured at the hands of the two Turkish diplomats. He referred Agdipa to legal services that could help her stay safe from the Ertays and rebuild her life.

The US government was informed of the case when Agdipa testified about the abuse and forced labor she endured, but to date US authorities have not brought charges against the diplomats.

The Ertays' actions – from recruiting Agdipa and convincing her to travel to the United States to threatening her with deportation and stealing her wages – violate numerous laws, including the federal Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the DC Minimum Wage Revision Act (DCMWRA), and the DC Wage Payment and Collection Law (DCWPCL). In addition, as laid out in the lawsuit, their conduct is alleged to include breach of contract, unjust enrichment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and fraud.

On May 20, Agdipa's lawyers – Olamide S. Orebamjo, Melissa L. Patterson and Elizabeth S. Fassih of the Jones Day law firm in Washington, DC – filed a motion in district court for a jury trial. The future course of the litigation remains uncertain because the Turkish couple has returned to Turkey and enjoyed diplomatic immunity while serving in the U.S. capital.

A similar case in 2013 involved Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, then Deputy Consul General at the Indian Consulate General in New York City. US authorities charged her with abusing Indian domestic worker Sangeeta Richard. Khobragade was arrested but later released due to her diplomatic immunity. The US requested a waiver of immunity, which was denied by India. She eventually left the US.

Interestingly, it was Preet Bharara, then the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who brought charges against Khobragade. Bharara also charged Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab and Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a senior official at the Turkish state-owned bank Halkbank, in May 2016 for a scheme to evade US sanctions against Iran. This case made Bharara a target of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was also involved in the sanctions evasion scheme.