Photo Courtesy of Google
Machuca was attacked in this 217th Street home in 2015.
By Forum Staff
A 35-year-old Bayside man will spend the next 10 years behind bars after Queens Supreme Court Justice Robert C. Kohm sentenced him for kidnapping his housekeeper.
Devanand Lachman who plead guilty to second-degree kidnapping will also be subject to five years supervised release at the end of his prison sentence. His wife, Ambar Lachman, also 35, plead guilty to unlawful imprisonment and was sentenced to five years probation for her role in the February 2015, unlawful imprisonment of the then-54-year-old victim.
“The victim in this case was brutalized by the male defendant, who struck her several times and held her against her will,” said DA Richard Brown. “The female defendant aided her husband in this heinous crime. The defendants suspected their housekeeper – who had been working for them for several months – had stolen from their home. But the real crime in this case occurred when the defendants decided to take the law into their own hands by abducting the woman. In pleading guilty, the two admitted to the crime and have now been sentenced by the Court.”
On February 13, 2015, Daisy Machuca arrived at the Lachman home at approximately 8 a.m. to clean. At roughly 1 p.m., Devanand Lachman and an unapprehended male entered the residence on 217thStreet in Bayside with knives anda firearm. The men took a phone and wallet from Machuca, then 54; Lachman accused the victim of taking cash and a gold chain from the house and punched her several times.
Lachman’s wife returned home and watched her husband beat and burn Machuca with a blowtorch.She told the victim they knew she’d stolen from them and told her she’d be killed if she didn’t tell them where the money and jewelry were.
Ambar Lachman then took the victim’s keys and she and the two men drove to Machuca’s Long Island home where they searched, to no avail, for the stolen items. Authorities say that they threatened the maid with death if she did not return the items when they came back the next day.
After the trio left the house, Machuca called police to report the incident.
