Prosecutors dropped the human trafficking charges against a Saudi princess, saying the charges were dropped because the servant living with her in Southern California was not being held against her will, according to CNN Edition.
Meshael Alayban, 42, was charged in July after the 30-year-old woman alleged that, among other things, she wasn't free to leave Alayban's condominium in Irvine.
But an extensive investigation after Alayban's arrest determined that while the servant might have believed the allegations, the woman's movements weren't restrained and Alayban wasn't guilty, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas told reporters outside a courtroom after a judge dismissed the case Friday morning.
"The evidence indicates very strongly at this point that the (domestic servant) was not actually the victim of human trafficking, and so this case had to be dismissed," Rackauckas said. Alayban, one of the wives of Saudi Prince Abdulrahman bin Nasser bin Abdulaziz al Saud, was arrested and charged after the servant, originally from Kenya, left the condominium, flagged down a bus and then talked to police.
The woman accused Alayban of paying her only $220 month, significantly less than the $1,600 a month she said she was promised. The woman also claimed that she was denied medical care, and that, when she arrived in Saudi Arabia to work for the family before following Alayban to California, the family confiscated her passport, authorities said.
But a post-charging investigation revealed that the "original terms of her employment were not what had been stated," and that the other allegations also didn't bear out, Rackauckas said. "The fact is she did receive medical care, and there really was not the restriction of her movements and her freedom to come and go as she certainly believed," Rackauckas said. Rackauckas said the movements of the family's other four workers were not restricted.
