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US Club owner arrested in Korean trafficking, prostitution case
By Bill Miller and agencies
May 3, 2005
Dallas - A Texas businessman faces federal charges of harboring seven Korean
women who, according to federal agents, were illegally brought to the United
States to work as party hostesses in his Dallas karaoke club.
Sung Bum Chang, 39, of Coppell, was released on his own recognizance during a
preliminary hearing Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Irma C. Ramirez in Dallas.
He was arrested early Tuesday at his home during a raid by 20 federal agents,
including a heavily armed tactical team.
Special Agent David Popp of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement testified
that agents believe Chang worked with an "international alien smuggling ring"
to recruit Korean hostesses for his business, the WA Club.
Chang, a Korean-American, declined to answer questions from reporters as he
rushed from the courthouse. A federal grand jury will decide whether there is
enough evidence to bring the case to trial.
"I think the truth will come out," said his lawyer, William Bratton of Dallas.
"I think it's a complicated case for the government to prove."
Bratton said Chang came to the United States in 1986 and became a naturalized
citizen last year. He described his client as a legitimate businessman with a
wife and child, whose livelihood is rattled by media attention on the case.
Especially harmful, he said, are inferences that Chang was running a sex slave
ring.
But Sarah Saldana, a federal prosecutor, noted that Chang doesn't face any
charges relating to prostitution.
"This case concerns the concealing and harboring of illegal aliens," she said.
"It has nothing to do with the purpose that these women were brought here."
Concerns about prostitution, however, were what started the investigation.
According to Popp, Chang's neighbors complained to police last year that women
were constantly coming and going at night from Chang's home in Coppell,
northwest of Dallas.
Popp said vice detectives notified his office, which investigates human
smuggling cases. Meanwhile, he said, one of the women escaped from Chang's home
by jumping out of a second-story window.
He said she fled to a Korean minister who referred her to law enforcement
officers. Popp said she later told him that the women worked at Chang's club to
pay the fees charged by the smugglers, about $12,000.
Popp said the woman reported that she was never forced to have sex with any of
the Korean businessmen who came to the club, but some of the other women "chose
to do so to pay off their debts quicker."
Knight Ridder Newspapers
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