Estimated read time: minutes. This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story. Ruixue Chen, 37, and Lianfan Feng, 54, are both charged in 3rd District Court with engaging in a pattern of unlawful activity and money laundering, second-degree felonies; exploiting prostitution, a third-degree felony; and two counts of prostitution, a class B misdemeanor.
Feng was also charged with three counts of aiding prostitution, a class A misdemeanor, and three counts of maintaining a public nuisance, a class B misdemeanor, while Chen was charged with one count of each crime. Xiu Yun Huo, 45, was charged with money laundering, a second-degree felony; exploiting prostitution, a third-degree felony; two counts of aiding prostitution, a class A misdemeanor; and two counts of maintaining a public nuisance, a class B misdemeanor.
The three have connections to six massage parlors in Salt Lake County and American Fork where women were forced to perform sex acts with customers in exchange for money, according to charging documents. The investigation began earlier this year when the Utah attorney general's Statewide Enforcement of Crimes by Undocumented Residents Task Force received a tip from a woman that "she was being forced to engage in commercial sex," the charges state.
The woman called Huo a "bad boss" and said Huo's husband "finds girls in Los Angeles and brings them to Utah to work," according to the charges. The woman said she agreed to do massages only, but claimed that after taking the job she was forced to perform sex acts.
She stated she wants to go home and requested law enforcement assistance," according to the charges. As investigators began digging into the case, they learned that Feng had the same Salt Lake address on her driver's license as another person who was investigated between and by the Utah Attorney General's Office for human trafficking, money laundering, and exploiting prostitution and was tied to two Asian massage parlors in Salt Lake County, the charges allege.
