Massage parlor owner pleads guilty to prostituting immigrants - Columbus Dispatch

[massage]

The operator of a chain of massage parlors that employed immigrants as prostitutes faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to charges in federal court.

Hui Li, 46, of 3217 Chesley Court on the Northwest Side, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to interstate travel to promote prostitution and employing undocumented immigrants to work in the brothels.

Agents with Homeland Security Investigations have said Li was the ringleader of a human-trafficking operation that shuttled Chinese women among several massage parlors. Eleven women were rescued during a raid in January, they said.

A complaint said Li operated the parlors from February 2014 until her arrest in January.

Investigators said the women worked 11 hours a day seven days a week at places such as Happy Fingers Spa, 5841 Karric Square Dr. on the Northwest Side, Best Asian Massage, 747 Wilson Rd. on the Hilltop, and Happy Fingers Spa/Asian Magic Touch in Cincinnati.

The parlors catered to an average of 15 men a day, and Li instructed the women to “make customers happy,” HSI Special Agent Justin Myers told U.S. Magistrate Norah McCann King.

Li posted Internet ads promoting the massage parlors, and postings on social media indicated that sexual services were available. Towels and paper tissues pulled from the trash at one of the parlors tested positive for semen, according to the criminal complaint.

Internal Revenue Service agents assisted in the investigation because Li never filed required wage documents on the workers.

The women were kept at a house on Bellows Avenue in Franklinton and driven to the parlors to work.

Court documents show that Li was associated with Li’s Asian Massage, 2606 Billingsley Rd. on the Northwest Side. Myers said she also operated two massage parlors in Illinois and was scouting a location in Frankfort, Ky., for another.

Investigators used a tracking device on Li’s car to follow her movements to the Illinois parlors, which helped solidify the interstate-travel charge.

The plea agreement requires Li to cooperate with government investigations into other criminal activity, which could be taken into consideration at her sentencing.

King said she will recommend to U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley that he accept Li’s guilty plea. The case is Marbley’s, but he was unavailable to hear it on Wednesday. He also will decide what sentence to impose.

Li faces forfeiture of any real estate or personal property — such as vehicles, computers or cameras — that she used in the crime or bought with the proceeds from it.

She can remain free pending the hearing before Marbley.

erinehart@dispatch.com

@esrinehart

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