An infamous Berkeley real estate tycoon - convicted of rampant sex trafficking over 20 years ago - died last week.
Lakireddy Bali Reddy, 84, was pronounced dead of natural causes after he was found unresponsive at his home on November 8 and transferred to Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, Alameda County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ray Kelly told Berkeleyside.
Telegu News International first reported the news, which noted he died from "respiratory ailments."
Prior to his arrest in 2000, Reddy owned approximately 1,000 properties making him one of the city’s wealthiest landlords, the paper said.
However, an investigation by the Berkeley High School student newspaper in 1999, sparked by the death of a teenager girl at one of Reddy's properties, uncovered a string of abhorrent sex crimes by Reddy.
Federal prosecutors eventually accused him of trafficking young Indian women from low castes to the U.S. under fraudulent visas to work in slave-like conditions at his empire of hotels and restaurants while he also sexually abused many of them.
In 2000, Reddy was convicted of one count of conspiring to commit immigration fraud, two counts of transportation of minors for illegal sexual activity and one count of subscribing to a false tax return. He was sentenced to eight years in Lompoc federal prison, registered as a sex offender in California and forced to pay over $2 million to his victims as restitution. Other members of his family were also convicted of aiding in the operation.
The East Bay Times reported Reddy continued to own around 1,200 rental units in Berkeley even after his prison term.
