Rich family allegedly paid maid 85 cents an hour

Mike Gallagher

Mar 3, 2012 - 08:46

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Rich family allegedly paid maid 85 cents an hour

In this June 19, 2009 photograph, Annie George, center, is seen at the funeral for her husband and son in Watervliet, N.Y. Federal authorities this week charged Kolath with keeping an illegal alien as a servant in her upstate New York home.

A lot of us are working longer hours for less money these days, but hopefully nothing like this: A New York woman is facing criminal charges for allegedly forcing an undocumented worker into "forced labor," making her work 17-hour days, seven days a week - cooking, cleaning and caring for the employer's five children.

Investigators say she was paid just $29,000 over five and a half years -- that's 85 cents an hour, according to The Smoking Gun. The kicker? That "house" the servant cleaned, and in which she was forced to sleep in a closet, was a 34-room, 30,000-square-foot, $30 million mansion on 12 acres, with "a helicopter pad, an indoor swimming pool, 15 fireplaces" and an array of other features, reports The Smoking Gun. Sheesh!