Santa Ana residents charged with pimping and pandering women at massage parlors

ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY PRESS RELEASE

Case # 15NF2343

Date: August 28, 2015

TWO MEN AND TWO WOMEN CHARGED WITH PIMPING AND PANDERING SEVEN WOMEN OUT OF THREE DIFFERENT BROTHELS DISGUISED AS MASSAGE PARLORS

SANTA ANA, Calif. – Two men and two women were charged today with pimping and pandering seven women out of three different brothels disguised as massage parlors in Orange County. Ion Bivol, 27, Huntington Beach, Hien Thi Nguyen, 26, Huntington Beach, Ngoc Bao Nguyen, 25, Santa Ana, Quynh Thuy Nguyen, 30, Santa Ana, are each charged with seven felony counts of pimping, and seven felony count of pandering. If convicted, the defendants each face a maximum sentence of 14 years in state prison. The defendants are being held on $500,000 bail and must prove the money is from a legal and legitimate source before posting bond. Bivol, Quynh Nguyen, and Hien Nguyen were arraigned today and are scheduled for pre-trial on Sept. 3, 2015, at 8:30 a.m. in Department N-3, North Justice Center, Fullerton. Ngoc Nguyen is scheduled to be arraigned at a later date.

Circumstances of the Case

The defendants in this case are accused of being pimps who exploits women for financial gain. Between December 2014, and August 2015, Hien Nguyen is accused of owning and operating brothels disguised as massage parlors in Midway City, Anaheim, and Westminster. Bivol is accused of managing the Anaheim brothel, Quynh Nguyen is accused of managing the Westminster brothel, and Ngoc Nguyen is accused of managing the Midway City brothel. Bivol, Quynh Nguyen, and Ngoc Nguyen are accused of knowingly creating work schedules for the victims to engage in commercial sex acts at their assigned brothel. The defendants are accused of pimping the victims by accepting payments from sex purchasers to derive support from the earnings and proceeds made from the victims engaging in commercial sex. Hien Nguyen is accused of collecting the money from her co-defendants managing the different brothels.

Members of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force (OCHTTF) and the Orange County District Attorney’s (OCDA) Office work proactively to protect women and minors from falling victim to commercial sexual exploitation. This case was investigated by the Huntington Beach Police Department (HBPD) with assistance from the Anaheim Police Department (APD) and OCHTTF, a partnership between APD, California Highway Patrol, Federal Bureau of Investigation, HBPD, OCDA, Orange County Sheriff’s Department, and community and non-profit partners.

Deputy District Attorney Brad Schoenleben of the HEAT Unit is prosecuting this case.

Proposition 35 and HEAT

In November 2012, California’s anti-human trafficking Proposition 35 (Prop 35) was enacted in California with 81 percent of the vote, and over 82 percent of the vote in Orange County, to increase the penalty for human trafficking, particularly in cases involving the trafficking of a minor by force.

A component of the OCHTTF is the OCDA’s Human Exploitation And Trafficking (HEAT) Unit, which targets perpetrators who sexually exploit and traffic women and underage girls for financial gain, including pimps, panderers, and human traffickers. The HEAT Unit uses a tactical plan called PERP: Prosecution, to bring justice for victims of human trafficking and hold perpetrators responsible using Prop 35; Education, to provide law enforcement training to properly handle human trafficking and pandering cases; Resources from public-private partnerships to raise public awareness about human trafficking and provide assistance to the victims; and Publicity, to inform the public and send a message to human traffickers that this crime cannot be perpetrated without suffering severe consequences.

Under the law, human trafficking is described as depriving or violating the personal liberty of another person with the intent to effect a violation of pimping or pandering. Pimping is described as knowingly deriving financial support in whole or in part from the proceeds of prostitution. Pandering is the act of persuading or procuring an individual to become a prostitute, or procuring and/or arranging for a person work in a house of prostitution.

Penal Code Section 236.1 defines:

(1) “Coercion” includes any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process; debt bondage; or providing and facilitating the possession of any controlled substance to a person with the intent to impair the person’s judgment.

(2) “Commercial sex act” means sexual conduct on account of which anything of value is given or received by any person.

(3) “Deprivation or violation of the personal liberty of another” includes substantial and sustained restriction of another’s liberty accomplished through force, fear, fraud, deceit, coercion, violence, duress, menace, or threat of unlawful injury to the victim or to another person, under circumstances where the person receiving or apprehending the threat reasonably believes that it is likely that the person making the threat would carry it out.

(4) “Duress” includes a direct or implied threat of force, violence, danger, hardship, or retribution sufficient to cause a reasonable person to acquiesce in or perform an act which he or she would otherwise not have submitted to or performed; a direct or implied threat to destroy, conceal, remove, confiscate, or possess any actual or purported passport or immigration document of the victim; or knowingly destroying, concealing, removing, confiscating, or possessing any actual or purported passport or immigration document of the victim.

(5) “Forced labor or services” means labor or services that are performed or provided by a person and are obtained or maintained through force, fraud, duress, or coercion, or equivalent conduct that would reasonably overbear the will of the person.

(6) “Great bodily injury” means a significant or substantial physical injury.

(7) “Minor” means a person less than 18 years of age.

(8) “Serious harm” includes any harm, whether physical or nonphysical, including psychological, financial, or reputational harm, that is sufficiently serious, under all the surrounding circumstances, to compel a reasonable person of the same background and in the same circumstances to perform or to continue performing labor, services, or commercial sexual acts in order to avoid incurring that harm.

(i) The total circumstances, including the age of the victim, the relationship between the victim and the trafficker or agents of the trafficker, and any handicap or disability of the victim, shall be factors to consider in determining the presence of “deprivation or violation of the personal liberty of another,” “duress,” and “coercion” as described in this section.

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