Racketeering charge dropped against woman in massage-parlor crackdown

A racketeering charge has been dropped against a woman who was among the hundreds arrested in a multi-agency crackdown on illicit massage parlors.

Yong Wang will be sentenced July 17 after instead pleading no contest to deriving proceeds or support from prostitution. Her defense attorney, Edward Mosher, said he didn’t expect her to receive anything beyond the 18 days she already has served in jail.

Authorities in Martin County had brought the racketeering charge against her and others as part of their efforts to shut down businesses they said were brothels masquerading as day spas. Mosher said his client was “just a masseuse,” and prosecutors “saw Ms. Wang’s involvement for what it was: Not much.”

Wang, who was freed on $1,000 bond, is “certainly not a racketeering mobster,” he said. Prosecutors also dropped charges of money laundering, engaging in prostitution and using a structure for prostitution.

Racketeering falls under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as RICO, which legal experts say is a charge often used for human trafficking cases.

Authorities have been investigating whether such trafficking played any role at a string of parlors that were shut down across four counties in Florida. They described how Chinese women were forced to live in squalor in small rooms, with no place to go, being paid a pittance for illegal sexual activity. They said some had applied for a legitimate massage job only to become trapped, and in other human trafficking cases had prepaid their immigration from China and now had debt.

Mosher said his client worked at the Bridge Spa in Hobe Sound in Martin Country last summer and then for only 10 days when the investigation started.

“I have not seen any evidence of human trafficking as it relates to this spa,” Mosher said. There was “probably some coercion on behalf of the owners, but not human trafficking — the employees were free to leave whenever they wanted. They had cellphones. Nobody was trapped.”

Mosher is also representing three of the men who were charged with solicitation at the East Spa in Vero Beach in Indian River County. They have a hearing scheduled for March 26.

Authorities said men were paying between $40 and $300 between three charges at the East Spa: the massage, the sex act and a tip. The women had to pay rent to live at the spa and buy their own food.

Judges signed off on search warrants, also called a “sneak and peek,” that let authorities enter businesses and secretly set up surveillance cameras.

Mosher said he is expecting to be victorious in the men’s cases as well: “Collectively, many defendants arrested in that particular case [will have] litigation to challenge the legality of the placement of the cameras inside and how the search and the surveillance was conducted.

“And I suspect many of these cases will either get dropped or will be diverted out of the system rather than prosecuted by the state.”