SOUTHLAKE, TX (KTVT/CNN) – Attorneys for a North Texas couple are blasting accusations that they committed a girl into a life of forced labor.
Mohamed Toure and Denise Cros-Toure are being held in federal custody without bail after U.S. State Department agents arrested them Wednesday morning at their house.
"We believe this complaint is riddled with salacious allegations, fabrications and lies," said Scott Palmer, attorney for Denise Cros-Toure.
Attorneys for the couple rejected accusations that they brought a girl from their native Guinea in West Africa into their Southlake home and forced her to do the cleaning, cooking, laundry and yard work – without paying her – for 16 years.
Court documents said the victim, now believed to be in her 20s, claimed she was called a whore and a slave at one point, and that when she refused to do the work, they "started physically abusing her."
A State Department agent investigating the case said the victim has "visible scars consistent with being struck by an electrical cord on her arms," and that there is a "visible scar and slit in her earlobe consistent with having an earring ripped from her pierced ear."
The couple has five children, ages 15 to 27, who grew up with the victim.
"They've read the complaint. They are just completely and totally just blown away that she can say these things," Palmer said.
Cheryl Maynard, who lived in the same neighborhood, said she thought something wasn’t right at the house because she often saw the victim mowing the yard.
"Because they have boys and the boys were not out, and I thought, 'Why the female, why just this one female all the time?'" Maynard said.
Palmer said the girl was a member of the family.
"There was no quid pro quo that we can establish at this point that she came to live with them in exchange for services," Palmer said.
A federal judge in Fort Worth will decide Monday morning whether to keep the couple locked up or allow them to come home.
Copyright 2018 KTVT via CNN. All rights reserved.
