Judge Throws Out Suit Against Former Diplomat from Wayne

A federal judge threw out a lawsuit filed by a domestic worker who accused a Peruvian diplomat bringing her to the United States and making her an involuntary servant in the official’s Wayne home.

Maria Rios Fun filed the suit against Marita Puertas Pulgar and her partner Alexis Aquino Albegrin in June 2013.  Puertas Pulgar was first secretary of the Permanent Mission of Peru to the United Nations at the time Rios Fun said she escaped from Puertas Pulgar’s Wayne home.

U.S. District Judge Stanley Chesler dismissed the suit Tuesday citing diplomatic immunity. Chesler noted that Rios Fun can re-file the suit when the defendants are “no longer diplomatically immune from the suit,” the website reported.

Rio Fun accused the women of forcing her to work up to 16 hours a day, everyday.

The New York Times reported last June that Rios said the women promised her “fair wages and a humane work schedule.” She was to work five days a week, earning nearly $10 an hour and almost $15 for every hour of overtime she worked. Instead, the report stated, that often worked from dawn until 10 p.m., was undernourished, and paid “significantly less than her base salary.”

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