An alleged sex sadist and his wife lured au pairs to their home where they were subjected to months of BDSM torture, a court has heard.
The couple kept two women locked in a small, windowless cage in their luxury home in the Andelfingen region near Zurich, Switzerland, for up to 15 hours a day, a court heard.
The 46-year-old man and his 32-year-old Filipino wife held a 22-year-old woman from the Philippines and a 30-year-old Brazilian woman as “house slaves” after luring them online with the promise of training and a residency permit, a Swiss newspaper reported. Look defeated.
The Swiss IT manager admitted that he regularly tied up the 22-year-old woman with handcuffs, leg irons and a waist belt, sometimes connecting them, while she was locked in the cage.
Judge Thomas Keller called it a “setting with BDSM elements” and said the man was “satisfying a sadistic sexual urge” by controlling the woman.
When she was the couple’s “house slave,” her husband “tested” the Filipina woman with exams in the catering industry in which he “trained” her.
If she did well, she was rewarded with a trip to a restaurant or the zoo. If she did poorly, punishments were imposed, such as shortening the chain that connected the handcuffs and leg irons, longer confinement in the cage, wearing very tight gloves, and further restrictions on the use of the telephone.
The couple kept two women locked in a small, windowless cage in their glamorous home in the Andelfingen region near Zurich, Switzerland, for up to 15 hours a day, a court heard (pictured: Andelfingen District Court)
The Swiss man has confessed that he first locked up the 22-year-old man in the house where he lived with his Filipino wife from July 2018 to April 2019, after recruiting the victim online in December 2017.
She had to do housework six days a week and be available to the couple day and night. This amounted to more than 45 hours of work a week. With this, the woman earned only 800 francs (about £715) a month.
On her “day off,” she was locked in a windowless cage measuring just 1.8 square meters, with only a bucket for a toilet, a small bed, stuffed animals and a surveillance camera keeping an eye on the woman behind the metal bars.
There was also a box for emergencies, the suspect said. He told the court: ‘There was a little red box that you have to break the window for.’
She was also tied up with hand and leg shackles attached to a leather collar every day, unless it was a special occasion such as Easter, her birthday or New Year’s Day.
The young woman could barely move while wearing the restraints, which the man told her were a “school requirement,” the court heard.
“I thought the cage and the bondage were part of the training,” the woman told the court, adding that she did not know the culture and customs in Switzerland and simply believed her husband.
She even said that she sometimes helped the victims put on the handcuffs.
Even when her husband was not home, the 22-year-old woman was in the cage. The woman, who also says she lets her husband tie her to the bed, claims she usually closed the cage herself and tied herself up.
“When she was tied up she couldn’t go to the toilet,” the woman told the court.
The contract, drawn up on June 29, 2018, states that the 22-year-old will be locked in “a room” (not a cage) without a toilet at night. However, there is no mention of additional restrictions.
Other requirements include dress codes, such as wearing white underwear and a maid’s outfit while working in the house, and extensive CCTV surveillance.
File photo of agricultural fields with gravel road in the village of Andelfingen, Canton of Zurich, on a sunny summer morning
She eventually signed the contract under pressure, after being picked up by her husband in Ticino, in southern Switzerland, after having traveled to Italy.
The man also showed the Filipina false applications to the immigration office to convince her that he had applied for a residence permit on her behalf.
When the 22-year-old indicated that she no longer wanted to sleep in the cage, the man threatened her with the police, telling his victim that the officers would deport her from Switzerland.
“I had to lie in the cage as if I were dead,” the woman told the court.
The man claims that the relationship between him and the woman was ‘not just a matter of coercion’ and that he also gave her holidays.
The IT manager, who currently earns a salary of 150,000 Swiss francs (£135,000), and his wife had promised the young woman an apprenticeship at the ‘International Maids School’ – which does not exist – and a residence permit to come and work for them in Switzerland.
The first employment contract, which the woman rejected, included cage confinement, which she did not want to accept.
Instead, she allegedly asked him to “enter into a sham marriage,” the man told the court.
When the woman finally managed to escape after ten months, after she said she ‘realised there was no school’, the couple reportedly recruited another ‘house slave’.
The Brazilian woman came to Switzerland to learn German and was lured to the couple’s home by her husband, who promised her “German lessons at the highest level.”
She was held as a “house slave” by the couple from June to mid-July 2019, when she was freed by police who had received a report from the Filipino woman “at some point” after she escaped.
The man used the pseudonym ‘Gustav Wohlenweber’ to send the 30-year-old photos of the family home with swimming pool.
The man claims the women agreed to the “situation” of being locked in a cage and tied up at night by signing their “work” contract.
Instead of offering her a hotel training course like the first victim, the man lured her with promising German lessons, which she received from his wife.
Above you see the castle of Andelfingen with a mill in the foreground
She was also subjected to tests and if she did not perform well, she was tied up, locked up for long periods of time or handcuffed. He also threatened her with a ban on jogging.
The woman admitted that she had read the possible punishments for the Brazilian woman during a German test, but she said she assumed this was part of the agreement between her husband and the woman.
The 30-year-old victim has never received any wages. The man explained this to the court by stating that his accounts were frozen during his detention.
The “sexual sadist” is accused of human trafficking, unlawful imprisonment, forgery, aiding and abetting illegal entry and illegal employment of foreigners. He has pleaded guilty to the charges.
The public prosecutor had demanded a partially suspended prison sentence of 36 months against the man, which his defense agreed to.
He would only have to serve nine of those months, but since he has already served five months, he would likely only have to serve an additional four months.
The man also paid the two women 16,000 francs (£14,300) in damages.
Meanwhile, his wife, who has not received a deal from the public prosecutor, could be forced to leave Switzerland and faces a 10-month suspended prison sentence on multiple charges of complicity in the woman’s deprivation of liberty.
She claims she only knew that the two women in the household did “cleaning and studying.”
She also admitted that the women were locked in the cage with her and her husband for much of the time, but added that they were not locked in there 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 approximately 3:00 p.m. local time.