An alleged sexual sadist and his wife lured au pairs into their home where they subjected them to months of BDSM torture, a court has heard.
The couple kept two women in a small windowless cage for up to 15 hours a day at their glamorous home in the Andelfingen region near Zurich, Switzerland, a court has heard.
The 46-year-old man and his 32-year-old Filipino wife kept a 22-year-old Filipino woman and a 30-year-old Brazilian woman as “domestic slaves” after luring them online with promises of training and a residency permit, a Swiss newspaper reported. See information.
The Swiss IT director admitted to regularly tying up the 22-year-old with handcuffs, shackles and a belt, which he sometimes connected together, while she was trapped in the cage.
Judge Thomas Keller called it a “scenario with BDSM elements” and said that by controlling the woman, the man was “satisfying a sadistic sexual inclination.”
During the time she was working as a “domestic slave” for the couple, the husband “tested” the Filipina with exams in the restaurant trade in which he was “training” her.
If she performed well, she was rewarded with visits to a restaurant or the zoo, but if she performed poorly, punishments included shortening the chain connecting the handcuffs and leg shackles, a longer period of cage confinement, wearing very tight gloves, and increased restrictions on phone use.
The couple kept two women in a small windowless cage for up to 15 hours a day at their glamorous home in the Andelfingen region near Zurich, Switzerland, a court has heard (pictured: Andelfingen district court)
The Swiss man first admitted to locking the 22-year-old in the house where he lived with his Filipino wife from July 2018 to April 2019, after beginning to recruit the victim online in December 2017.
She had to do housework six days a week and be at her partner’s disposal 24 hours a day, which amounted to more than 45 hours of work a week, for which the woman earned just 800 francs (about £715) a month.
On her ‘day off’, she was locked in the windowless cage measuring just 20 square metres, which contained only a bucket for a toilet, a small bed, stuffed animals and a surveillance camera that watched the woman sitting behind metal bars.
There was also an emergency key box, according to the defendant, who told the court: “There was one of those little red boxes where you have to break the window.”
She was also bound with handcuffs on her hands and legs connected to a leather collar every day unless it was a special occasion such as Easter, her birthday, and New Year’s Day.
The girl could barely move while wearing the restraints, which the man told her were a “school requirement”, the court heard.
“I thought the cage and bondage were part of the training,” the wife told the court, adding that she did not know Swiss culture or customs and simply believed her husband.
He even said that he sometimes helped victims put on their shackles.
Even when her husband was not home, the 22-year-old woman was kept in the cage, but the wife, who also said she lets her husband tie her up in bed, claims she usually locked the cage and tied herself up.
“When I was tied up, I couldn’t use the bathroom,” the wife told the court.
The contract, drawn up on June 29, 2018, says the 22-year-old must be locked in “a room,” not a cage, with no bathroom at night, but no additional restrictions are mentioned.
Other terms include dress codes (such as wearing white underwear and a maid outfit while working in the house), as well as comprehensive camera surveillance.
Stock image of agricultural fields with gravel road in the village of Andelfingen, canton of Zurich, on a sunny summer morning
She ended up signing the contract under pressure after her husband picked her up in Ticino, southern Switzerland, after she had travelled to Italy.
The man also showed the Filipino woman fake applications to the immigration office to convince her that he had applied for a residence permit for her.
When the 22-year-old said she no longer wanted to sleep in the cage, the man threatened her with police action and told his victim that officers would deport her from Switzerland.
“I had to stay in the cage as if I was dead,” the woman told the court.
The man claims that the relationship between him and the woman “was not just coercive” and added that he gave her vacations.
The IT manager, who currently earns 150,000 francs (£135,000), and his wife had promised the young woman training at the “International School for Maids” – which does not exist – as well as a residence permit to come and work for them in Switzerland.
The first employment contract, which the woman rejected, included confinement in a cage as one of the conditions, something she did not want to accept.
Instead, he allegedly asked her to “enter into a sham marriage,” the man told the court.
When the woman finally managed to escape after ten months, saying she “realized there was no school,” the couple allegedly recruited another “house slave.”
The Brazilian woman came to Switzerland to learn German and was lured into the couple’s home by her husband, who promised her “German classes of the highest standard.”
The couple kept her as a “domestic slave” from June to mid-July 2019, when she was freed by police who had received a report from the Filipina “sometime” after she escaped.
The man used the pseudonym “Gustav Wohlenweber” to send 30-year-old photographs of the family home with a swimming pool.
The man claims the women agreed to the “environment” in which they would be locked in a cage overnight and tied up by signing their “employment” contract.
Instead of offering her hotel training like the first victim, the man tricked her by promising her German classes, which she received from his wife.
The picture above shows Andelfingen Castle with a mill in the foreground.
She was also subjected to tests and, if the results were not satisfactory, she was tied up, locked up for longer periods of time or handcuffed. She was also threatened with being banned from jogging.
The wife acknowledged having read the possible punishments in a German exam for the Brazilian, but said she assumed it was part of the agreement between her husband and the woman.
Before arriving at the house, the man had shown her a small room with a table and told her she would be locked in there, but she “had not seen the cage,” she told the court.
He said he agreed to sleep in the cage because it was “the only possibility” as there was no other place to sleep other than the two cages in the house.
The 30-year-old victim never received any salary payments, which the man explained to the court by blocking his accounts while he was in custody.
The ‘sexual sadist’ is accused of human trafficking, wrongful imprisonment, forgery, complicity in illegal entry, as well as illegal employment of foreigners and has confessed to the charges.
The prosecutor asked for a partially suspended prison sentence of 36 months for the man, to which his defense agreed.
He would only have to serve nine of those months, but since he has already spent five in pretrial detention, he would probably only have to face another four.
The man also paid 16,000 francs (£14,300) to the two women as compensation.
Meanwhile, his wife, who has not received any plea bargain from the prosecution, could be forced to leave Switzerland and faces a suspended prison sentence of ten months on multiple charges of complicity in the deprivation of liberty of the woman.
She claims that the only thing she knew about the two women’s responsibilities in the house were “cleaning and studying.”
She also admitted that the women were locked in the cage for much of the time with her and her husband, but added that they were not locked in for 24 hours.
The Filipina told the court that she was “manipulated” by her husband.
The Swiss court is expected to announce its verdict tomorrow afternoon, September 18, at around 3:00 p.m. local time.
