BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts woman accused of operating a high-end brothel network with wealthy and prominent clients in that state and the Washington, D.C., suburbs that generated millions of dollars in revenue was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison.
Han Lee and two others were indicted last year on one count of conspiracy to persuade, entice, and coerce one or more individuals to travel in interstate or foreign commerce to engage in prostitution and one count of money laundering, according to prosecutors. The operation, according to court documents, generated millions of dollars a year, and customers paid hundreds of dollars an hour for services.
Junmyung Lee of Dedham, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in October and is set to be sentenced next month. James Lee of Torrance, California, accused of renting the apartments in the operation, pleaded guilty last month to his involvement in the scheme as well as fraudulently obtaining nearly $600,000 in pandemic relief funds. He is set to be sentenced next month.
“You ran a highly profitable business that involved recruiting women across the country to come to Massachusetts and Virginia to sell their bodies for sex,” said U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick. “The government argues and I agree this is not a victimless crime."
Prosecutors had asked that Han Lee, 42, who pleaded guilty in September, be sentenced to six years imprisonment and three years of supervised released for running “one of the most successful prostitution networks” on the East Coast. They estimate that nearly 10,000 commercial sex dates occurred in her brothels, according to court records, and that Lee made more than $5 million dollars over more than four years.
Lee's federal public defender, Scott Lauer, had pleaded for leniency, saying in court documents that Lee grew up poor in South Korea and had a father who drank heavily and was abusive. After arriving in the United States, she became a sex worker in California, Las Vegas and New York before settling in Massachusetts and continuing to work in the trade.
After a brothel was raided, Han Lee saw the opportunity to set up the network. The defense contended none of the sex workers were forced to do the job and that they kept up to 70% of the revenues. Her clients were vetted to reduce the dangers and she didn't withhold travel documents from the workers.
“While cases involving prostitution often involve some degree of force or coercion exerted against the women involved, this case does not,” Lauer wrote. “There is a world of difference between Ms. Lee — a sex worker herself — and a pimp (or madam) who enriches themselves at the expense of those performing the work."
Assistant United States Attorney Lindsey Weinstein acknowedged that Lee didn't treat her workers badly but that didn't take away from the fact she recruited them into a world where they spent long days being paid for sex in strange cities, rarely leaving the apartment.
“You don't get credit for not threatening and abusing other women,” she said. “This was a business, a lifestyle she was personally involved in. The fact she decided to further harm onto others is pretty significant here.”
Lee, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and speaking through an interpreter, apologized to the court and said she was only trying to support the women, some who were fleeing domestic violence or lacked an education.
“I heard all their stories and tried to help them," she said.
Authorities said the sex ring in Massachusetts and northern Virginia catered to politicians, company executives, military officers, lawyers, professors and other well-connected clients.
Nearly 30 of the buyers are appearing court this month in Cambridge, after the state's highest court ruled last year that the hearings should be public. The first group of buyers appeared in court last week, and a second group is set to appear Friday.
The women who worked in the brothels were not identified or criminally charged and were considered victims, prosecutors said.
Han Lee maintained the operation from 2020 to November 2023.
The brothel operation used websites that falsely claimed to advertise nude models for professional photography, prosecutors alleged. The operators rented high-end apartments to use as brothels in Watertown and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Tysons and Fairfax, Virginia, prosecutors said. Brothels were maintained at four locations in Massachusetts and two in Virginia.
Each website described a verification process that interested sex buyers undertook to be eligible for appointment bookings, including requiring clients to complete a form providing their full names, email addresses, phone numbers, employers and references if they had one, authorities said.
FILE - Planters rest near an entrance to apartments, in Watertown, Mass., Monday, Nov. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
