Avantika Rao '02 Successfully Represents Victim of Human Trafficking
Avantika Rao '02 represented a victim of human trafficking for one and one-half years during an extensive federal criminal investigation that ultimately resulted in the conviction of a Walnut Creek woman of five criminal counts including forced labor, visa fraud, and conspiracy to commit visa fraud. Mabelle de la Rosa Dann was convicted by a federal jury on October 9 in a case receiving significant press coverage in the Bay Area and internationally.
Rao, an attorney at La Raza Centro Legál in San Francisco, represented a Peruvian national who had been kept in involuntary servitude, collaborating with Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE), Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, the Orrick law firm, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the Bay Area on the case.
Prior to La Raza Centro Legál, Avantika worked at the Asian Law Caucus's Employment Law Project, C.R.L.A. in Marysville, and clerked for Judge Daniel R. Foley of the Hawai'i Intermediate Court of Appeals. She lives in Sacramento and accepts private cases.
Contra Costa Times article on the case
Avantika Rao bio at Calimmigrant.com
