An Oregon couple has been charged with kidnapping and torturing two New York siblings, who were held prisoner and forced to perform manual labor, authorities said.
An Oregon couple is behind bars after they were charged with kidnapping, torturing and enslaving a New York brother and sister after luring them to their home with promised jobs, authorities said.
Eastwood Mohammed Mannan, 35, and Cassie Jo Gudino, 27, are being held at the Josephine County Jail in lieu of $500,000 cash bail, according to online records. Both are charged with multiple counts of kidnapping and involuntary servitude.
Neither appear to have entered pleas, according to online court records.
The Grants Pass Police Department said the couple was arrested last week after officers received a call from a 22-year-old man who said he had just escaped the couple's home, where he had been kept a prisoner for months. The man said he and his 19-year-old sister had traveled to New York to work for Mannan and Gudino, according to authorities, only to be physically and emotionally abused and held against their will.
Mannan is a cousin of the victims, police said.
The couple “forced the victims to work by using fear of serious physical injury and use of torture, such as burning them with a torch, ice baths, beatings and starvation," police said in a statement.
The brother and sister were forced to perform household chores while being held, authorities said. The victims were also forced to work online jobs and to surrender all their incomes to the couple, police said.
Mannan and Gudino were scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon, court records show. There was no attorney of record listed for Mannan. Inside Edition Digital reached out to Gudino's lawyer for comment, but has not heard back.
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