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Reddy's lawyer asks for DNA tests

R S Shankar

Ted Cassman, the attorney for Lakireddy Bali Reddy, has asked for DNA tests to prove that Reddy, or his son Vijaykumar, is not the father of the child the 17-year-old girl known as Seetha Vemireddy was carrying when she died from carbon monoxide poisoning in November.

Reddy is out on a $ 10 million bail for a number of cases involving the smuggling of girls from Andhra Pradesh for sexual purposes. Vijaykumar Lakireddy is out on a $ 500,000 bail in a case of supplying false information to immigration authorities so that H1-B visas were issued to undeserving candidates who ended up doing menial work for him and his father.

The dead girl's real name is Shanti Jyotsna Devi Prattipati, police believe. The Berkeley police are weighing the possibility of bringing a statutory rape charge against Reddy who is the richest and biggest landlord in the university city.

Last week, the coroner's office confirmed that the dead girl was 10 days pregnant. The Reddys have denied any wrongdoing. But the officials say they have testimony from the 15-year-old sister of the dead girl that the 62-year-old Reddy had sex with both of them, and with a third young woman who shared their apartment in Berkeley, California.

Earlier, the police had said that Vijaykumar had unsuccessfully sought his father's permission to have sex with the young women.

"If it's true that the deceased woman was pregnant," Cassman told reporters. "then we are convinced that such evidence will be persuasive proof of our clients' innocence and that she had sexual relations with someone other than our clients."

But legal experts and others who have followed the case wondered how the DNA tests could exonerate Reddy.

"The DNA could prove that he was not the father of the child," said a woman who had protested against Reddy in front of the Pasand restaurant he had owned. "It does not mean that he did not sexually abuse her."

Cassman has also said that he is going to challenge the view that the dead girl was a minor. He believes she was 18 at the time of her death.

But newspapers have quoted the coroner's report which revealed that the man posing as the girl's father -- and Reddy, acting as his translator -- told a coroner's investigator two days after her death she was 17 years old. Officials also believe that her passport also showed she was 17.

Police had found Viagra at Reddy's residence; he is separated from his wife for several years.

The 17-year-old girl's death has been ruled accidental. Her 15-year-old sister survived and is in federal protective custody. She could be a strong witness against Reddy.

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