Woman accused of high -end brothels near Boston and Washington to be sentenced

Boston – A Massachusetts woman accused of operating A high -end brothel network With rich and prominent customers in that state and Washington, DC, the suburbs will be sentenced on Wednesday.

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.

Prosecutors demand that they have read, who declared himself guilty in September, be sentenced to six years in prison and three years of supervised released by directing “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 she “controlled daily operations.”

“They have immensely benefited from women who sold their bodies by sex and hid multimillions of illicit income dollars obtained from their business,” wrote the United States assistant prosecutor, Lindsey Weinstein. “They have attracted and recruited women to travel to Massachusetts or Virginia from other states, and on thousands of occasions, ordered women to have sex with strangers for money. He made an amazing amount of money, at least $ 5.46 million dollars for more than four years, and used sophisticated means to hide that money from the law.”

But the federal public defender of Lee, Scott Lauer, begged to clemency, saying in 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 maintains that none of the sex workers in this operation was forced to do the job and that they maintained most income.

“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. Commercial sex workers in this case were well treated and well compensated.”

The authorities said the commercial 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.

The prosecutors said that their evidence included testimony of witnesses of women who worked in the brothels, sexual buyers who made appointments or received services, physical surveillance and electronic evidence.

Han Lee maintained the operation from 2020 to November 2023. The money earned in the brothels sometimes remained in the freezer to be collected, prosecutors said. They said he also helped train Junmyung Lee to help sexual exam buyers.

The brothel operation used websites that falsely claimed to announce bare models for professional photography, prosecutors allege. 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.

According to judicial documents, the defendants established house rules for women during their stays in a given city to protect and maintain the secret of the business and ensure that women do not call attention to prostitution work within the apartment buildings.

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.