Massage parlor owner’s prostitution role nets prison
6-year term given for procurement
A businesswoman who recruited women to travel to Western New York and work as prostitutes at her four local massage parlors was sentenced Wednesday to six years in federal prison.
Len Wah “Lisa” Chong, 45, who ran three massage parlors in Niagara County and one in Erie County, also was ordered to pay $350,000 in restitution and forfeit several business buildings to the federal government.
Chong, who was born in Malaysia and immigrated to North Tonawanda, was one of the main targets of a continuing federal human- trafficking investigation.
The massage parlor investigation already has spawned a spin-off probe that led to convictions of three local members of a nationwide organization, the Royal Order of Jesters, who admitted transporting prostitutes over state lines.
Chong pleaded guilty in April to felony charges of recruiting prostitutes — mostly Asian women — to work at her massage parlors in Wheatfield, the Town of Tonawanda, Lockport and Niagara Falls.
Wednesday, her attorney, John S. Yong, attempted to downplay Chong’s conduct, calling her a “simple-minded” person.
“This is not a sex-trafficking case in the classic sense,” Yong said. He told U. S. District Judge William M. Skretny that Chong did not have women imported to Western New York from other countries to “act as sex slaves.”
Yong said he believes that most of the women who came to work for Chong had previous experience as prostitutes and were fully aware what they would be required to do in the massage parlors.
“[But] I am not saying, by any means, that my client is not guilty,” Yong added.
Skretny and U. S. Attorney Terrance P. Flynn took issue with some of Yong’s remarks.
“I think there’s a fine line between being simple-minded and being dumb like a fox,” Skretny said.
The judge called Chong a “shrewd and astute businesswoman.”
“The victims, the workers, were emotionally abused. They were forced to provide sexual favors,” Skretny added. “The punishment has to fit the crime.”
There have been allegations that some of the women who worked in the parlors were raped, Skretny also noted, but to date, no such charges have been filed.
“These women were taken advantage of and coerced,” Flynn said. “They were not free to move about the community. They lived in substandard conditions. Some of them even lived in the massage parlors, with nothing more than a hot plate to cook food and no winter clothes.”
Speaking in court Wednesday, Skretny observed that Chong “made sure the business sustained itself by catering to the right clientele in the right fashion. . . . Deference [was] given to high-ranking officials.”
Chong became an American citizen in January 2005. In charges filed by the U. S. attorney’s office, three members of her family are also accused of helping run the operations.
After an investigation by the Human Trafficking Task Force and Alliance, there was a series of arrests made in December 2007. The agencies involved included the FBI, the U. S. Border Patrol, the sheriffs’ offices in Erie and Niagara counties, and U. S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement.
Prosecutor Robert C. Moscati said women were recruited to work in the massage parlors with the promise that the parlors were “licensed” and safe from law enforcement action.
Under the conditions of her plea deal, Chong agreed to cooperate with federal agents in the investigation. Skretny said Chong could have faced a 15- year sentence if not for her cooperation.
Speaking through an interpreter, Chong pleaded with Skretny for a shorter prison term than the one he imposed.
“I would like to plead that my child, who is 5, needs me, and my husband, who is sick with cancer, needs me,” Chong said.
She promised that, once released from prison, she will only take jobs that are legal, working in restaurants.
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