Businessman in prostitution and slavery raps gets 9 years

U.S. District Court Judge Alex R. Munson has sentenced Friday Korean businessman Soon Oh Kwon, president of Kwon Enterprises, to nine years in prison for forcing women into slavery and prostitution in the CNMI.

The Federal Court also handed down a 57-month imprisonment to Kwon’s wife, Ying Yu Meng, 32, for conspiracy to violate federal laws that prohibit involuntary servitude.

At the same time, Kwon’s 26-year-old son Mo Young Kwon, an officer of Kwon Enterprises, received a lesser penalty of 30-month sentence on a charge of transportation for illegal sexual activity.

The three defendants were ordered to collectively pay $45,000 in restitution to the victims.

“We will not tolerate this kind of behavior,” said Bill Lann Lee, acting assistant attorney general for civil rights. Judge Munson’s decision shows that those “who engage in the exploitation of workers will be brought to justice and severely punished,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Justice began investigating the Kwon family in 1998 after receiving information that they were luring women from China to the CNMI, holding them in slavery and forcing them to work as prostitutes in K’s Hideaway Karaoke, a bar owned by Kwon Enterprises.

Mr. Soon, 52, pled guilty in October 1999 that he brought the women from China to Saipan in 1996 and 1997 to work at the karaoke club where they were forced to have sex with customers. The women were not allowed to stop working for Kwon Enterprises until they had paid their debts to Mr. Kwon and his family for bringing them to Saipan.

In order to discourage the women from leaving without permission, Mr. Kwon admitted that the women were subjected to mental and physical coercion, which included threats to their lives and their families’ reputation in China.

He also admitted to waving a pistol at some of the women. Mr. Kwon said he and his wife threatened the women in order to prevent them from complaining to the CNMI Department of Labor and Immigration.

“This kind of abuse of guest workers is intolerable,” said Frederick A. Black, U.S. attorney for the District of the Northern Mariana Islands. “No matter where someone is from, once they come to the United States, they should be free from slavery.”

The case was brought to court as a result of the cooperative efforts made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as part of the Clinton administration’s CNMI Initiative on Labor, Immigration and Law Enforcement, a broad-based multi-agency initiative designed to increase resources and oversight in the Northern Marianas.

The Kwon family will appeal the case.