CENTRAL ISLIP — A pair of Indonesian women brought to America to work as housekeepers were starved, deprived of sleep, and repeatedly stabbed and beaten by a millionaire Long Island couple, federal prosecutors said today in opening statements at the couple’s trial.

Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, and his wife, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 45, have pleaded not guilty to a 12-count indictment accusing them of conspiracy, involuntary servitude, and other charges.

Defense lawyers suggested in their opening statements that the charges were the result of a series of misunderstandings, and said there were other explanations for some of the accusations.

The couple — who operate a worldwide perfume business out of their Long Island home — were arrested in May after one of the servants, wearing only pants and a towel, was found wandering outside a doughnut shop on the north shore of Long Island, pleading for help.

Authorities concluded the servant escaped from the Sabhnanis’ nearby home when she took out the trash.

“They were brought to the United States to work as house servants, but they weren’t treated like house servants,” an assistant U.S. attorney, Demetri Jones, said in her opening statement.

Prosecutors allege the couple held the women as virtual slaves, subjecting them to serious physical abuse and paying them no wages except for $100 a month sent to relatives abroad.

The women were slashed with a knife and made to climb stairs repeatedly as punishment for various misdeeds, the indictment says.

One of the victims was forced to consume numerous hot chili peppers and later had to eat her own vomit after becoming sick from the peppers, prosecutors said.

If convicted, the Sabhnanis, who have four children, could face as much as 40 years in prison.

Stephen Scaring, who represents Mahender Sabhnani, said there is no evidence his client ever abused either woman, “nor did they ever complain to Mahender that they were being abused.”

Varsha Sabhnani is originally from Indonesia and her husband is from India; both are American citizens.

The Sabhnanis are free on $4.5 million bail but under house arrest; they have personally paid an estimated $10,000 a day for 24-hour security surveillance of them as part of the bail agreement. The couple spent nearly three months in jail before the bail agreement was finally struck in August.

One of the servants came to Long Island in 2002; the second in 2005. Prosecutors say the Sabhnanis confiscated their passports.