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Popular sushi restaurant owners sentenced
Man receives prison time for harboring illegal immigrants; 2 other get probation

By Matthew Dolan
Sun Reporter
Originally published March 28, 2007, 4:28 PM EDT


The owners of some of Baltimore's best-known Japanese restaurants were sentenced today in federal court after pleading guilty a year ago to harboring illegal immigrants. Only one received prison time.

Tzu Ming Yang, one of the owners of the Kawasaki restaurants, received a sentence of five months in prison and supervised release for three years, which includes five months of home detention. He also has to complete 100 hours of community service. His wife, Jui Fan Lee Yang, received two years of probation and 50 hours of community service while their business partner, Jack Chang, received three years of probation, which includes 10 months of home detention and 100 hours of community service.

The news last year shocked the city's sushi-loving diners: illegal immigrants working for substandard wages and without tips so the owners of Kawasaki restaurants -- in Mount Vernon, Fells Point and at Johns Hopkins Hospital -- could buy expensive cars and homes in the suburbs.

Their guilty pleas in U.S. District Court in Baltimore nearly a year ago for harboring illegal immigrants have been offered up by federal authorities in Washington as evidence of the new approach of targeting employers who knowingly hire workers who enter the country improperly. In the Kawasaki case, immigration officials charged the owners and moved to deport 15 employees, saying they entered the country illegally.

The trio also have agreed to hand over to federal authorities more than $1.1 million in cash, property and vehicles.