United States v. Fu Kuo

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedDecember 3, 2009
Docket08-10314
StatusPublished

This text of United States v. Fu Kuo (United States v. Fu Kuo) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Fu Kuo, (9th Cir. 2009).

Opinion

FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,  Plaintiff-Appellee, No. 08-10314 v. FU SHENG KUO, aka Fu Shen Kuo,  D.C. No. CR 07-00225- aka Pakea, aka Zhu Ge, DAE-1 Translated, Brother Pig, Defendant-Appellant. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,  No. 08-10330 Plaintiff-Appellee, v.  D.C. No. CR 07-00249-DAE SHENGJI WANG, OPINION Defendant-Appellant.  Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii David A. Ezra, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted October 15, 2009—Honolulu, Hawaii

Filed December 3, 2009

Before: Robert R. Beezer, Susan P. Graber, and Raymond C. Fisher, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Graber

15805 15808 UNITED STATES v. KUO

COUNSEL

Peter C. Wolff, Jr., Federal Public Defender, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Pamela E. Tamashiro, Honolulu, Hawaii, for the defendants-appellants.

Karen L. Stevens, United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Washington, D.C., for the plaintiff-appellee.

OPINION

GRABER, Circuit Judge:

Defendants Fu Sheng Kuo and Shengji Wang appeal the imposition of restitution following their pleas of guilty to vio- lating 18 U.S.C. § 241, Conspiracy to Violate Civil Rights. Defendants “knowingly and willfully conspired to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate [Chinese women] recruited for and engaged in prostitution, in the Territory of American Samoa.” As we explain below, restitution for “lost income,” 18 U.S.C. § 3663, is not the same as disgorgement of all of Defendants’ ill-gotten gains from the victims’ forced prostitu- tion. Accordingly, we must vacate the restitution order and remand for further proceedings.

BACKGROUND

From December 1998 through September 2006, Defendants induced women to travel to American Samoa from China, UNITED STATES v. KUO 15809 Taiwan, and Fiji to engage in prostitution for the financial benefit of Defendants. In January 2006, Wang traveled to China and recruited victims Y.H. and J.C. (collectively “the victims”) under the pretense that she would employ them to work as cashiers in her grocery store in American Samoa. Wang told them that she would arrange for their travel and immigration documents for a fee of approximately $1,875 each and would also purchase their airline tickets and secure their visas.

Y.H. and J.C. arrived in American Samoa in March 2006. Defendants immediately confiscated their passports and return tickets. The victims were taken to the Bao Lai, a restaurant and brothel owned by Kuo. The Bao Lai was a three-story structure with locks on each exterior door, making it possible to lock all doors from the outside. Wire covered all of the windows and the exterior staircase of the structure. Wire or plywood also covered most of the balcony area.

The victims were locked in and coerced to work at the Bao Lai as prostitutes, ostensibly to repay Defendants for their travel expenses. Defendants threatened to hit or beat the vic- tims if they did not do as they were told. Wang also told the victims that she knew people in China who would hurt their families if they refused to comply. Additionally, the victims were regularly threatened with food deprivation for refusing to work.

From March 7, 2006, through August 30, 2006, Y.H. and J.C. performed prostitution services every night that fishing vessels were in port. Each victim was forced to have various forms of sexual intercourse with a total of 50 to 70 customers. The victims stated that, from the first night on, they suffered pain, bleeding, bruising, and tearing of their vaginas. They also suffered abrasions, bruising, and pain to their legs and back from certain sexual demands of customers. Many of the customers did not wear condoms. 15810 UNITED STATES v. KUO The victims were not paid any money for having sex with customers. Customers paid Wang directly at a rate of approxi- mately $100 to $200 per sex act. Wang received 60% of the earnings, supposedly to pay the victims’ airfare and room and board, while the remaining 40% went to Kuo. Defendants told the victims that their debt was increasing and had reached $6,000.

After several failed attempts to escape, J.C. successfully cut the wire mesh around her bedroom window, removed the wooden frame, and rolled the wire mesh to create an opening large enough to crawl through. Y.H. used a rope and success- fully climbed down the three stories. J.C. followed but slipped and fell to the ground, hurting her head, ankle, arms, hands, and back. The victims were picked up by a taxi driver, who dropped them off in a nearby village. In the village, they met a store owner who spoke Chinese; they explained to him that they had been kept in captivity at the Bao Lai and forced to work as prostitutes. The store owner reported the matter to the police, and the victims were taken to the police station. A Chinese translator assisted the victims in providing a state- ment to the police.

After the police interview, the victims were treated for their injuries at a hospital. The victims had developed health prob- lems such as anxiety attacks, chest pains, vomiting, ulcers, and suicidal ideations. J.C. received treatment that night for pain, bruising, and swelling of her left foot; neck and lower back pain; contusion to her forehead; and multiple abrasions to her hands, wrists, elbows, and forearms as a result of her fall from the Bao Lai balcony.

Y.H. reported to authorities that the injuries she sustained have rendered her unable to bear a child. She also reported excruciating pain and suffering. Y.H. has attempted suicide on numerous occasions and suffers from constant nightmares. She worries frequently that Kuo will get others to kill or harm members of her family in China. UNITED STATES v. KUO 15811 J.C. reported that she suffers from constant foot and lower back pains, as well as sleeplessness. She also is suicidal and worries that Kuo will kill her family and take revenge on her when he is released from prison.

Defendants were arrested shortly after the victims made their escape. Following Defendants’ arrests, police questioned Kuo’s wife, Kueiling Chen. After being questioned, Chen and a former employee returned to the Bao Lai and collected all of Wang’s accounting documents pertaining to the prostitu- tion business, including records, calendars, and notes showing customers’ names and prostitution proceeds. Acting on Kuo’s orders, they then burned the documents behind Chen’s home.

Kuo and Wang appeared separately before two different United States magistrate judges; each pleaded guilty to a single-count information, pursuant to a plea agreement. The information charged each Defendant with knowingly and willfully conspiring to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimi- date persons in the free exercise and enjoyment of the rights and privileges secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States, that is, the right to be free from involun- tary servitude secured by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, all in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241.

The district court imposed terms of incarceration and entered judgment against Defendants on January 16, 2008. On February 29, 2008, the government filed a motion for restitu- tion. Kuo filed a response, which Wang joined. The govern- ment then filed a supplemental motion in support of restitution pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1593, an inapplicable stat- ute.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

United States v. Austin
479 F.3d 363 (Fifth Circuit, 2007)
Hughey v. United States
495 U.S. 411 (Supreme Court, 1990)
United States v. Cotton
535 U.S. 625 (Supreme Court, 2002)
United States v. James
564 F.3d 1237 (Tenth Circuit, 2009)
United States v. Royal
100 F.3d 1019 (First Circuit, 1996)
United States v. Dean Harvey Hicks
997 F.2d 594 (Ninth Circuit, 1993)
United States v. Darnell Garcia
37 F.3d 1359 (Ninth Circuit, 1994)
United States v. Christopher A. Smith
156 F.3d 1046 (Tenth Circuit, 1998)
United States v. William Douglas Lomow
266 F.3d 1013 (Ninth Circuit, 2001)
United States v. James Earl Matthews
278 F.3d 880 (Ninth Circuit, 2002)
United States v. Dennis Bright
353 F.3d 1114 (Ninth Circuit, 2004)
United States v. Fayez Alburay
415 F.3d 782 (Seventh Circuit, 2005)
United States v. Theodore Anthony Cienfuegos
462 F.3d 1160 (Ninth Circuit, 2006)
United States v. Tuyet Thi-Bach Nguyen
565 F.3d 668 (Ninth Circuit, 2009)
United States v. Waknine
543 F.3d 546 (Ninth Circuit, 2008)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
United States v. Fu Kuo, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-fu-kuo-ca9-2009.