B.C. tycoon pleads guilty to confining prostitute
VANCOUVER— After confessing he tried to stop a woman whom he had paid to have sex with from leaving his Vancouver mansion, billionaire David Ho turned from the judge in the courtroom and tried to apologize to his victim.
But the woman he unlawfully confined after a night of sex and drugs wasn’t in court.
Ho, who might have forgotten what the victim looked like or just assumed he was addressing the right person, ended up apologizing to a television reporter.
Outside court, Ho had nothing to say about the bizarre encounter.
“His reputation by virtue of these charges of course was damaged,” said Ho’s lawyer, Len Doust, after his client’s guilty plea.
Ho, 59, also pleaded guilty Thursday to possessing an unregistered loaded Glock semi-automatic pistol and given one year’s probation plus a $5,000 fine. In addition, he must attend a drug counselling program and complete 45 hours of community service.
On Dec. 28, 2008, Ho contacted a prostitute online and agreed to pay her for sex. At his mansion, the two smoked cocaine and had sex.
Early in the morning, she tried to leave but he wouldn’t let her. The victim phoned her father saying, “Dad, help me. I’m on a bad date.” Wearing only her panties, she ended up climbing over a fence and broke her ankle when she fell down.
Doust explained in court that the victim suffered from agoraphobia and his client didn’t want the woman, who wasn’t wearing shoes or her coat, to leave because of the snowy conditions outside that night.
The judge found that Ho may have been sincere but went too far in trying to prevent her from leaving his mansion.
Ho’s brother, Charles Ho, is chairman of the Sing Tao News Corp., the owners of Sing Tao Daily newspaper.
Star Media Group, which owns the Toronto Star, also partially owns Sing Tao Daily.