'Viagra works, where is the fetus, Mr Reddy?'

The woman carrying the placard said she was praying that Lakireddy Bali Reddy, the 64-year-old landlord who admitted bringing teenaged girls into the country for sex, would be in a prison from which there is no exit.

She talked about Reddy using Viagra and impregnating at least one young girl who died in an accidental carbon monoxide leak in an apartment owned by him in the university town of Berkeley.

If Reddy's victims had been white girls who spoke English, his misdeeds would have been headline news across America, said another woman, also middle-aged, and also white, who carried a placard saying: 'Deport Reddy!'

'Dollar talks and Reddy walks' said another placard, referring to the $100 million Reddy has reportedly made in the last three decades.

But inside the federal court in Oakland on Tuesday, Reddy, once a powerful landlord and restaurateur in Berkeley and the Silicon Valley, stood with teary eyes and a stooping back as Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong handed him an eight-year prison term.

During a day of dramatic arguments and counter arguments, Armstrong had rejected the plea bargain Reddy had entered into in March. She felt that the arrangement had not sufficiently addressed the physical and emotional torture the girls had undergone.

If Reddy did not agree to a stiffer punishment, the judge indicated that he would face a trial that could take months to resolve. She adjourned the proceedings about 1115 PDT.

But prosecutors and defence attorneys, who had told Armstrong that they wanted to see the victims restart their lives as soon as possible, came back about three hours later with an agreement for a 97-month sentence.

Reddy, dressed in a blue shirt and navy blue trousers, often trembled during the proceedings. At one point, one of his attorneys requested the judge to let him sit down. As he gingerly took a few steps to sit at his lawyer's table, several members of his family, who were occupying a second-row bench, began sobbing.

The new plea bargain did not change a key component in the first one: Reddy will still have to pay $2 million restitution to the family of the young girl who died in his apartment.

Some of the activists in the court had hoped Judge Armstrong would insist on higher restitution. "Two million dollars is like dipping the hands in a cookie jar for him," said one of them. "There were at least seven young girls who were severely exploited by him and his relatives. Give $5 million to each of them."

"No," she stopped. "Give them $2 million each, and give away the rest of the ill-gotten money to charities."

The case broke on the eve of Thanksgiving Day in 1999 when two sisters suffered carbon monoxide poisoning in Reddy's downtown Berkeley apartment. A 17-year-old died, but her younger sister lived.

Initial newspaper reports, based on stories spawned by Reddy and his cohorts, said the girls had come to America with their parents in pursuit of immigrant dreams. Their father was an H1B visa-holder, the reports said, and since he had not found a suitable job after arriving in America, Reddy had hired him to work in his restaurants. Reddy was the compassionate godfather, the stories suggested.

But soon the surviving sister and another roommate told police that Reddy had smuggled them from Andhra Pradesh and that he regularly had sex with them.

The "parents" happened to be Reddy's agents. Reddy, arrested in early 2000, was released on bail of $10 million. His two sons and four relatives were also charged with illegally bringing about 50 foreigners to work in the Bay Area since 1986 for less than minimum wage at some of his 1,000 apartments and restaurants. His sons have spurned plea bargain offers and decided to fight the charges.

On March 7, Reddy pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud, two counts of transporting a minor for sex and one count of submitting a false tax return in 1998 and lying about having his bank accounts in India.

But on Tuesday, Judge Armstrong refused to accept his proposed plea bargain. And by mid-afternoon, Reddy and his defence team gave in.

As Reddy was led out of court, there was more sobbing. But one relative, who stopped between her sobs, said: "They will send him out on parole in two or three years. And then he can do a lot of good. Build temples, colleges..."

Unfortunately for her and for Reddy, under the federal government's sentencing rules, he will not be eligible for parole for at least seven years.

(Arthur J Pais contributed to this story)

The Lakireddy Trial: The complete coverage

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