Woman accused of high -end brothels near Boston and Washington is 4 years in prison

Boston (AP) – A Massachusetts woman accused of operating A high -end brothel network With rich and prominent customers in that state and the suburbs of Washington, DC, which generated millions of dollars in revenues were sentenced on Wednesday to four years in prison.

Have read and two others They were accused last year According to a conspiracy position to persuade, attract and force one or more people to travel in interstate or foreign trade to participate in prostitution and a money laundering position, according to prosecutors. The operation, according to judicial documents, generated millions of dollars a year, and customers paid hundreds of dollars per hour for services.

Junmyung Lee De Didham, Massachusetts, declared himself guilty in October and will be sentenced next month. James Lee de Torrance, California, accused of renting the apartments in the operation, declared himself guilty last month of his participation in the scheme, as well as obtaining almost $ 600,000 in pandemic aid funds. It is scheduled to be sentenced next month.

“He directed a highly profitable business that involved recruiting women throughout the country to come to Massachusetts and Virginia to sell their bodies by sex,” said the United States District Judge, Julia Kobick. “The government argues and I agree that this is not a crime without victims.”

The prosecutors had asked that they have read, 42, who declared himself guilty in September, was sentenced to six years in prison and three years of supervised released by executing “one of the most successful prostitution networks” on the east coast. They estimate that almost 10,000 commercial sexual dates occurred in their brothels, according to judicial records, and that Lee earned more than $ 5 million in more than four years.

The federal public defender of Lee, Scott Lauer, had begged for clemency, saying in the judicial documents that Lee grew poor in South Korea and had a father who drank a lot and was abusive. After arriving in the United States, he became a sex worker in California, Las Vegas and New York before settling in Massachusetts and continuing to work in trade.

After a brothel was raided, they have read the opportunity to establish the network. The defense said that none of the sex workers were forced to do the job and that they maintained up to 70% of the income. Her clients were examined to reduce the dangers and she did not retain the workers’ travel documents.

“While cases involving prostitution often imply a certain degree of strength or coercion exerted against women involved, this case,” Lauer wrote. “There is a world of difference between Mrs. Lee, a sex worker, and a pimp (or lady) who enriches the expense of those who do the work.”

The United States attached prosecutor, Lindsey Weinstein, acknowledged that Lee did not treat his workers badly, but that did not take away the fact that she recruited them in a world where they spent long days being paid by sex in strange cities, rarely left the apartment.

“You don’t get credit for not threatening and abusing other women,” he said. “This was a business, a lifestyle in which it was personally involved. The fact that it decided to harm others is quite significant here.”

Read, dressed in an orange monkey and speaking through an interpreter, apologized to the court and said he was only trying to support women, some who fled domestic violence or lacked an education.

“I heard all their stories and tried to help them,” he said.

The authorities said the sex ring in Massachusetts and northern Virginia attended politicians, company executives, military officers, lawyers, teachers and other well -connected clients.

Almost 30 of the buyers appear this month in Cambridge, after the highest court of the State ruled last year that the audiences should be public. The first group of buyers appeared in the Court last week, and a second group will appear on Friday.

The women who worked in the brothels were not identified or criminally accused and were considered victims, prosecutors said.

Han Lee maintained the operation from 2020 to November 2023.

The brothel operation used websites that falsely claimed to announce bare models for professional photography, prosecutors alleged. The operators rent high -end apartments to use as brothels in Watertown and Cambridge, Massachusetts and Tysons and Fairfax, Virginia, prosecutors said. The brothels remained in four locations in Massachusetts and two in Virginia.

Each website described a verification process that interested sexual buyers undertook to be eligible for appointment reserves, including demanding customers to complete a form that provides their full names, email addresses, telephone numbers, employers and references if they had one, authorities said.

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