Tag: Prostitution

If you are going to commit illegal prostitution in the US, having your massage parlor named “The Texas Doll House” and having a manager named “Kum Shugars” is probably not the best cover:

Fifteen women were arrested and eight brothels were shut down last month in northwest Dallas as part of a sex-trafficking investigation, authorities say.

The women, all of whom were owners or managers of massage parlors in northwest Dallas, were arrested in stings Aug. 26. Most of the women were booked into the Dallas County Jail on charges of aggravated promotion of prostitution, a third-degree felony.

The charge carries a minimum of two to 10 years in prison if convicted, and a fine of up to $10,000.

Two of the arrested women, Connie Su Moser and Kum Shugars, are charged with using a facility of interstate commerce in aid of a racketeering enterprise for using cellphones and the internet to promote prostitution at Dallas Doll House, according to the North Texas Trafficking Task Force. Moser, the owner of Dallas Doll House, also faces one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.  [Dallas News via reader tip]

You can read more at the link, but for those who are wondering; Ms. Kum Shugars must have been doing a good job running the place since it had positive reviews:

Services rendered, according to the anonymous reviewers, are indistinguishable from what one might expect at a brothel that wasn’t pretending to be something else.

CBJs (oral sex with a condom), CFS (vaginal sex with a condom) and DATY (oral sex performed by the client on the Doll House employee) are all mentioned multiple times, along with physical descriptions of the women providing the services.

“It’s a classic AMP [Asian massage parlor],” user Bill M says. “Decent looking girls there the time I went about 2 months ago.”  [Dallas Observer]

The owner of the massage parlor Connie Sue Moser appears to have been doing quite well for herself with her whole in the wall massage parlor business:

Moser, the owner of the Doll House, was arrested at her Lewisville home. Shugars, a manager at the parlor, was arrested at Dallas Doll House. Both were charged with use of a facility of interstate commerce in aid of a racketeering enterprise.

The task force also seized roughly $420,000 from Moser’s home, $70,000 from her bank accounts and her 2015 Lexus.  [WFAA]

You can read more at all of the above links.

It makes me wonder how many of these type of bars are operating in Seoul especially since according to the article the bar is perfectly legal:

A clandestine bar where couples openly have sex and watch other couples having sex has been operating in the middle of Seoul, a TV network reported Thursday.

Couples in their 20s to 40s hand in their mobile phones and other belongings before the sex party, which includes group sex and swapping.

The bar is on the third floor of a building in the middle of Hongdae, one of Seoul’s busiest night-out areas, according to TV Chosun.

There are shower booths and cleansers for women to use after sex.

The bar even runs a blog where readers can find explicit reviews, a bulletin board aimed at foreigners, and photos of a dressing room that holds erotic clothing, TV Chosun said.

The bar has remained confidential for seven years, thanks to strict security checks. It is open only to members, who must make a reservation. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like an area of the UCMJ that will need to be updated is to include same-sex prostitution as a crime.  This reminds of the Air Force colonel trying to get his adultery charges dropped because the UCMJ does not include same-sex adultery as a crime:

An Army medic charged with murder in connection with the stabbing death of his wife was sentenced Saturday in military court to 27 months in federal prison and a dishonorable discharge for possession of child pornography and soliciting others to engage in sex for money.

Sgt. Michael Walker, who was assigned to Tripler Army Medical Center, pleaded guilty Saturday to three counts of solicitation and not guilty to one count of possession of child pornography before a military judge at Wheeler Army Airfield’s courtroom.  (…………)

Walker, who has been in the military for 12 years, was charged with solicitation instead of prostitution because the Uniform Code of Military Justice, under which Walker was found guilty, defines prostitution as between a man and a woman.

In his court-martial, Walker admitted to placing two ads in September 2014, seeking people to have sex with in exchange for money. He said in the ads that he was looking for “generous men to spend time with” or “looking to have some fun.”

In court, he said, “My purpose was to find people to have sex with and at the same time to give me money.”

Walker said he met with three men that fall and had sex with them for money on multiple occasions. He said one man paid him $400 for an encounter.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read much more at the link, but this guy still faces even more time in jail when his murder trial comes up.

This is a horrible case of rape and forced prostitution in Gwangju:

Police requested arrest warrants for two men who locked up a runaway teenager and allegedly forced her into prostitution, Wednesday.

The Gwangju Dong-bu Police said the men, aged 20 and 18, had invited a 17-year-old runaway they befriended via a chatting app to live with them, then turned violent once she moved in.

The victim stayed with them for 12 days.

Police requested arrest warrants for two men who locked up a runaway teenager and allegedly forced her into prostitution, Wednesday.

The Gwangju Dong-bu Police said the men, aged 20 and 18, had invited a 17-year-old runaway they befriended via a chatting app to live with them, then turned violent once she moved in.

The victim stayed with them for 12 days.  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link.

Is it accurate to say that someone was “forced” into prostitution when the soldier in the below article willing decided to work for the pimp for financial gain?  For sake of argument if a woman decided to break the law by robbing houses while a man sat in the get away car outside would we say the woman was forced into burglary?  To me it seems they are both equally guilty.

A man who forced a 19-year-old Fort Bragg soldier into prostitution last year threatened to tell the soldier’s commander about her exchanging sex for money, new court documents say.

The court documents also revealed that the soldier was the victim of sex trafficking as a juvenile.

Jibri Quandel Thomas, 23, of the 3200 block of Brookemere Place, was charged by the Fayetteville Police Department in connection with exploiting the soldier. He turned himself in to Fayetteville police detectives Jan. 11 and was indicted in federal court Jan. 28.

A superseding indictment in federal court filed April 25 charged Thomas with two counts of transporting for prostitution and racketeering for prostitution.  [Fayetteville Observer]

You can read the rest at the link, but it sounds like this soldier probably should have never been in the Army in the first place considering she was a practicing prostitute at the age of 17 before she even enlisted.  Joining the military was an opportunity for this soldier to turn her life around; it is unfortunate she did seize that opportunity.

Gusts of Popular Feeling has a translation of this Joong Ang Ilbo article about a 20 year old man found guilty of prostitution with a 13-year old run away girl in Uijongbu:

Korean love hotel image via Flickr user For 91 Days.

A man in his twenties who even received the motel fee from a 13-year-old schoolgirl found guilty of prostitution

A man in his twenties who met a 13-year-old runaway schoolgirl for sex but argued he wasn’t guilty and said that “The schoolgirl paid more of the motel fee so it wasn’t prostitution” was found guilty.

Seoul Eastern District Court announced on the 16th that is that it [sentenced] Mr. Lee (22), who had been charged with contravening the Law for Sexual Protection of Children and Youth, to a one-year sentence suspended for two years and ordered him to attend 40 hours of sexual assault treatment classes.

Mr. Lee came to know A (13) on June 10, 2015 via a smartphone chatting application. Learning that A had run away and needed a place to sleep he promised, “If you come to my house, I can put you up,” and the next morning he called her out to the Uijeongbu Station area.

When he met A, Lee said, “It’s hot right now, so let’s go and rest,” and took A to a nearby motel. The motel fee was 20,000 won but Lee had only 8000 won in his pocket. Lee asked A, “Can you pay a little bit?” and got 10,000 won from her and, after getting a 2000 won discount, paid the motel fee.

After they had sex, Lee said, “My parents came home early so I can’t put you put you up,” and left A and returned home.

In court Lee claimed that “Since I had never promised to put her up at my house and I paid 8000 won of the motel fee but A paid 10,000 won, it wasn’t buying sex.”

Subsequently he protested that “Since A looked 20ish in her chatting program profile photo, in which she was wearing makeup, I didn’t think she was a minor.”

However, the court said, “It doesn’t make any sense that you saw her face and didn’t know she was 13.” “Seeming to offer to put up a runaway victim at your house and meeting [her], you acted to buy sex to satisfy your sexual desire, and the fact that even after that you left her and ignored the fact that she was penniless because of you makes the nature of the crime very bad.”

It added, “Because she expected that the defendant would give him a place to stay afterwards, she readily gave 10,000 won.” “The defendant fully acknowledged the fact that he promised to provide payment for things like a place to stay and that, expecting this, A acceded to sex.”

A court official said, “The amount of money when providing payment for prostitution does not matter; if it’s true that payment is provided, then [the fact of] prostitution is established.”  [Gusts of Popular Feeling]

I guess the moral of this story is that if you are going to trick a thirteen year old runaway girl to have sex with you make sure she pays for the entire hotel bill.  That is because as Gusts of Popular Feeling discusses in his article the age of consent in South Korea is 13 years old.  Read the rest of the article to better understand why the age of consent is so low.

It looks like New York City has a few less Korean prostitutes today.  I wonder how long this will last?:

Joint federal and local Police authorities cracked down on Korean brothels in New York’s Koreatown. According to the police, many of the women who worked at these brothels came from Korea thru a visa waiver program.

The group that operated these businesses attracted customers through elaborate internet website and operated in 11 different premises by disguising to be lawful spa establishments. The arrested group was found to have more than 70,000 customers in a database.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

A woman representing a nationwide association of brothel owners, known as Hanteo, sobs at the Constitutional Court in Seoul on March 31, 2016, after the court declared the law punishing voluntary prostitution constitutional. (Yonhap)

It appears the language barrier is what initially led to the misunderstanding at LAX of a K-Pop group being mistakenly investigated as prostitutes.  If anything their promotion company should be happy about this arrest because of all the media attention the no name group has now received:

Newbie K-pop girl group Oh My Girl returned to Incheon International Airport on Friday morning after being held for 15 hours at Los Angeles International Airport. WM Entertainment, the eight-member girl group’s agency, said the girl group was held at the U.S. airport because they were mistaken for prostitutes.

“We have appointed a lawyer in the states because we need a valid explanation for the unfair detainment,” a person working for WM Entertainment said.   WM added that Oh My Girl left for Los Angeles on Wednesday for photo shoot.

“A person working at immigration asked about the relationship between the girl group members and staff, and one of the staff members said ‘sister,’” a person working at WM told multiple local news agencies. “And the customs office thought it was weird because the girl group and staff members are not related by blood. The customs office also paid attention to a lot of props and clothes.”

Staff members reportedly tried to explain that they were visiting Los Angeles as singers, but they could not correct the misunderstanding at immigration, and the group and staff members’ smartphones were confiscated.
In the end, the girl group could not enter the United States and returned to Korea.
Oh My Girl released their first debut single in April, but the K-pop act is still largely unknown in the music scene.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

This really should not come as much of a surprise since the vast majority of North Korean defectors are women and when they arrive in the South they have few job skills to make a living with.  Turning towards prostitution to make ends meet is something that women with financial issues have done for centuries.  Additionally many of these North Korean women had to turn to prostitution while refugees in China in order to make money to get to South Korea in the first place:

A considerable number of female defectors from North Korea have become sex workers here after experiencing difficulties adjusting to life in the South, according to media reports.

KBS, a state-run broadcaster, aired a program on Sunday night about the plight of some 40 to 50 female defectors who work at “ticket dabangs,” coffee shops that illegally sell sex, in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. Some of these places are owned by North Korean defectors.

The women are usually in their late 30s to mid 40s. The clients, mostly in their 50s to 70s, are not only residents of Hwaseong, but travel to the town from other regions.

The women spend time with clients in karaoke and go to motel rooms with them as well as delivering coffee, which is the ostensible business activity.

A female defector told the program that each client pays 25,000 won ($22) per hour for singing together in karaoke rooms. Another woman asked for a more than 100,000 won to provide sexual services when a member of the production crew disguised as a client contacted her.

It was already known that ticket dabangs recruiting female North Korean defectors are also prevalent in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.

The women said that they used to work at normal companies or work as waitresses in restaurants after they defected, but their monthly salaries of some 1.3 to 1.7 million won was not enough to maintain their livelihood and support their family members left behind in the North. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.