Women sentenced for conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants (Fairfax Times)

Women sentenced for conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants
Falls Church salon used young Korean women as ‘hostesses,’ court records state
by Gregg MacDonald | Staff Writer
Tuesday April 19, 2011

Both the owner and the madame of a Korean room salon in Falls Church were sentenced Friday in federal court for conspiracy to both harbor illegal immigrants and to induce them to reside in the United States for commercial advantage and private financial gain.

Sang Bun Surh, 52, of Annandale was sentenced to 30 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to forfeit $2 million in illegal proceeds. Young Mi Kim, 41, also of Annandale, was sentenced to 16 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to forfeit $2 million in illegal proceeds.

Both entered guilty pleas last December.

Both defendants will also be turned over to immigration officials to undergo deportation proceedings, according to Peter Carr, spokesman for the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

According to a statement of facts in the case, Surh was the owner of the Tomato Garden social club, or "room salon," located in the 1200 block of West Broad Street in Falls Church. The club is also known locally as High Society.

Court documents state the establishment catered to primarily wealthy men of Korean descent and provided young, Korean female servers and hostesses who would "sing and dance, flirt with, entertain and pour drinks" for the male customers in each of the salon's eight private rooms.

Customers typically paid as much as $300 for a bottle of liquor and received companionship free of charge from the female servers, according to court documents.

In her guilty plea agreement, Surh admitted to recruiting female Korean illegal immigrants to work at Tomato Garden.

Court documents state that Kim, who managed the club and was its "madame," also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants for commercial advantage and private financial gain. At least 25 female employees that investigators encountered at the salon were illegal immigrants recruited from South Korea during the past three years, documents state.

Surh said in her plea agreement that she and Kim used apartments in Annandale to harbor the women who worked at the salon and that they sometimes booked flights for them, bringing them to Falls Church and then requiring them to work off their airfare from South Korea.

Also in the plea agreement, Surh said Tomato Garden grossed in excess of $4 million since December 2007.

Late last year, William Won Hwang, chairman of the Korean-American Association of Northern Virginia, said that legal room salons are a part of Korean upper-class culture, catering to those who can afford, and choose, to patronize them. They are just like a café and there is nothing illegal about most of them, Hwang said.