US woman admits to running high-end Asian sex ring used by politicians and executives

A Massachusetts woman pleaded guilty on Friday to running a high-end brothel network in the greater Boston area and the suburbs of Washington that served wealthy and well-connected clientele including politicians, corporate executives, lawyers and military officers.

Han Lee appeared in Boston federal court to plead guilty to charges that she conspired to persuade, induce and entice primarily Asian women to travel to Massachusetts and Virginia to engage in prostitution and committed money laundering.

She was the first to admit wrongdoing of the three individuals who prosecutors charged in November in connection with a sex ring run out of apartment complexes in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts and Fairfax and Tysons, Virginia.

Lee, 42, faces up to 25 years in prison when she is sentenced December 20. She stressed when addressing US District Judge Julia Kobick that while she ran an illegal prostitution business, she did not force any women to engage in sex work.

“I simply want to emphasise that I did not control the women,” she said through a Korean interpreter.