genderberg.com - Korean man held for sex trafficking

BY ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO
Staff Writer

September 16, 2004, 5:21 PM EDT

An expanding federal probe in the Korean community in Flushing led to an arrest of a Korean national yesterday on charges he was part of a ring of suspected sex traffickers operating out of bar.

Hyun Goo Kang, 40, was ordered held without bail after his arraigment in Brooklyn federal court on a four count indictment accusing him of obstruction of justice, kidnapping, peonage and sexual abuse.

Assistant U.S. attorney Robert Capers told Magistrate-Judge Joan Azrack that Kang faced detention because of his illegal immigration status. Court appointed lawyer Frank Geoly did not object to Kang's detention.

The charges, contained in a superseding indictment, stem from the arrest earlier this year of the operators of the Renaissance Bar in Flushing. A married couple, Kyongja Kang, 41, and Wun Hee Kang, 40, were arrested in January after federal agents said two Korean women who came to the United States to work at the bar complained that they were told to pay off their travel debts by having sex with customers. They are not related to Hyun Goo Kang.

The original complaint alleges Kyongja Wang told victims that the bar business would keep all of their earnings and that they could not leave New York or stop working until they paid their travel debts, which totaled $10,000 to $20,000.

Investigators also charged that her husband, verbally and sexually abused the two female victims. Wun Kang also allegedly tried to sell the two immigrant women to a Chinatown brothel , according to the original complaint.

While the latest indictment has no new details, it does indicate that one woman originally charged has been dropped from the case. The earlier indictment listed Myung Hee Kim, 24, a woman who lived with the Kangs, as a defendant. But the indictment filed yesterday has dropped Kim, who is in federal custody, from the list. Her attorney, Frank Bari, declined to comment.

Also charged earlier this year was Nisim Yushuvayev, a federal customs inspector, accused of being in league with the Kang couple. He is free on bail.

Hyun Goo Kang, who investigators said worked for a time at the Renaissance Bar, was recently working in construction and at a nail salon, Geoly said.

Federal prosecutors are trying to seize the assets of the Kang couple, including homes in Port Jefferson and their interest in the bar, located on 154th Street.

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.