http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... IGEST3.DTL

SAN FRANCISCO
2 brothel operators enter guilty pleas
- Cicero A. Estrella
Sunday, July 9, 2006


Two women who operated San Francisco brothels that forcibly employed undocumented immigrant women from Asia have pleaded guilty to conspiring to harbor aliens, the state Department of Justice said Friday.

The pleas are the result of a joint investigation and prosecution by federal and local agencies, including the U.S. attorney's office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI and San Francisco police.

Yon Suk Pang, 56, pleaded guilty to an additional charge of money laundering and has agreed to forfeit $1.2 million in profits from her criminal activity. The San Francisco resident ran the Suk Hee Oriental Massage Parlor on the 400 block of Broadway since 1995. She obtained women from Asia through brokers and forced them into prostitution, partly by withholding their passports as they worked off their debts to the brokers, officials said.

Min Sung Kim, 50, of Cupertino, operated the Golden Dragon Spa on the 100 block of Mason Street as a front for a brothel beginning in 1997. She has admitted to employing illegal aliens as prostitutes. Kim will forfeit $70,000 in profits.

Kim is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 6 and Pang on Oct. 18.

The maximum statutory penalty for alien-harboring conspiracy includes 10 years imprisonment, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. The money-laundering conspiracy charges could mean 20 years in prison, a $500,000 fine (or twice the value of funds involved, whichever is greater) and five years of supervised release.