Woman sentenced for making immigrants work as sex slaves at massage parlors - Columbus Dispatch

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Despite what Hui Li claimed, evidence showed that she knew her massage parlors were actually brothels where sex slaves catered to dozens of men a day, a judge said.

To U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley, Li was a madam who exploited young and undocumented Asian women who came to the United States looking to better their lives, but ended up as sex workers 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

“You came here to escape persecution, then you persecute others,” Marbley said on Friday before doubling the maximum six-month prison sentence in Li’s plea agreement to 12 months and a day. Any sentence over 12 months affords an inmate the opportunity to earn time off for good behavior.

Li, 47, of Chesley Court on the Northwest Side, pleaded guilty in November to interstate travel to promote an unlawful business enterprise and employing undocumented immigrants.

She said that she didn’t know the women were working as prostitutes, saying her Asian culture prompted her to trust people.

According to court records, Li operated Happy Fingers Spa at Karric Square Drive on the Northwest Side; Best Asian Massage on Wilson Road on the Hilltop; Happy Fingers Spa/Asian Magic Touch in Cincinnati; and two parlors in Illinois. She was scouting another location in Frankfort, Kentucky.

After Li pleaded guilty in November, she used her massage license to help her sister open a parlor in Kettering. Police there said an investigation showed evidence of sex for sale at that Montgomery County parlor.

Defense attorney James Gilbert said the women working at Li’s parlors had been looking for work and that Li believed she was helping them by giving them a job, a place to stay and food. As the number of parlors expanded she was unable to make sure the workers followed her strict rules and regulations, he said.

She realized after her arrest that “it did get out of control,” Gilbert told Marbley.

“It’s alarming to the court that you don’t think they were being exploited,” Marbley told Li through an interpreter.

The judge said that despite Li not having used force, the women must have thought, “I have to do this or else where am I going to go? How will I ever survive?”

Li immigrated to the United States from China after her husband was jailed for opposing the Chinese government, Gilbert said. They divorced. Li married again and became a U.S. citizen. Her second husband was abusive, he said.

Li completed masseuse school at Miami-Jacobs Career College on the Near East Side and worked 16 hours a day starting a business, Gilbert said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Heather Hill said investigators found evidence of sexual activity at all of Li’s parlors. The women who agreed to be interviewed said they worked grueling hours. They were transported back and forth between a Franklinton house and the central Ohio parlors. A few lived at the parlors, investigators said.

The women said Li told them “do whatever it takes to make the customers happy,” Hill said.

Marbley said Li had the women dress in skimpy outfits and purchased ads on the websites Backpage and Craigslist. The photos showed young women in provocative poses. Customer reviews of her parlors made it clear the main commodity was sex.

Gilbert told Marbley that Li is needed to help her family run the restaurant Peking Hot Pot that they opened in March on Bethel Road on the Northwest Side.

“If she doesn’t operate the restaurant, it will fail,” Gilbert said.

Marbley gave Li until Nov. 1 to get her affairs in order before surrendering to the U.S. Marshal’s Service for transport to prison.

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