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THREE GIVEN MAXIMUM SENTENCES FOR FORCING WOMEN INTO SLAVERY

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Three individuals who plead guilty last October on charges that they lured women from China, held them in slavery and forced them into prostitution were given the maximum sentence by a federal judge in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, the Justice Department announced.

Federal Judge Alex R. Munson sentenced Soon Oh Kwon, president of Kwon Enterprises, Inc, to 108 months in prison on a charge of conspiracy to violate rights, specifically the right to be free from involuntary servitude. Kwon's wife, Ying Yu Meng was sentenced to 57 months in prison for conspiracy to violate federal laws that prohibit involuntary servitude, extortion, and transportation for illegal sexual activity. Kwon's son, Mo Young Kwon, who is an officer of Kwon Enterprises, received a 30 month sentence on a charge of transportation for illegal sexual activity. In addition to their prison time, all 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. "Today's sentences show that those who engage in the exploitation of workers will be brought to justice and severely punished."

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

"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."

When Soon Oh Kwon pled guilty last October, he admitted that, in 1996 and 1997, Kwon Enterprises, in collaboration with Kwon's mother-in-law, recruited and brought women from China to Saipan 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 debts owed to Kwon and his family for bringing them to Saipan.

In order to discourage the women from leaving without permission, Kwon admitted that the women were subjected to mental and physical coercion, which included threats to their lives, and their families' reputations in China. He also admitted to waving a pistol at some of the women. In addition, Kwon and his wife admitted that they threatened the women in order to prevent them from making complaints to the CNMI Department of Labor and Immigration.

This case was brought as a result of a cooperative investigation 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 CNMI, a U.S. Commonwealth located in Micronesia.

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