Mexican Girl Tells of Being Recruited for Prostitution

A 17-year-old mother of three testified Thursday that she worked as a prostitute to support her mother and children in Mexico.

The woman, identified only as Rosalva because of her age, testified in federal court on the last day of a trial of a man accused of running a prostitution ring in Long Beach.

Often looking downward and speaking in a hushed tone, Rosalva said through a court interpreter that a woman she met in her hometown in Mexico told her “I should come here so I can support my family better.”

She also said that the woman told her that she would make $15 a client, and could return to Mexico after a few months.

Rosalva was the second woman allegedly recruited into the ring to testify this week in U.S. District Court against Vu Tieng-Phou. He is charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of harboring undocumented immigrants.

Tieng-Phou faces 20 years in prison if convicted. The jury started deliberating Thursday.

Rosalva testified that she was seeking a way to make more money than she made cleaning houses in her homeland. She said she received no financial support from her husband and sent the tips she received from clients to her mother in Mexico.

Each client paid $60, she said, and it was all given to Tieng-Phou, whom Rosalva pointed out in court. She also said he kept records of transactions and handed the money over to Sammy Cheung, the ring’s alleged mastermind who was also charged in the case.

Prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office tried to paint Tieng-Phou as the person who oversaw the day-to-day operation of the alleged prostitution ring, which involved recruiting women and girls from Mexico, and smuggling them across the border to work in various houses in the Los Angeles area.

They alleged that Tieng-Phou helped run the operation, uncovered by police in January, at a Long Beach home. Rosalva testified that Tieng-Phou would be at the house from about 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. almost every day, sometimes getting meals for the women or helping to cover the windows with nailed-down cloth. She said she saw him have conversations with Cheung.

Defense attorney Steven M. Cron, however, tried to show that both Rosalva and Yolanda Echeverria Cruz, who earlier testified against Tieng-Phou, may have been influenced by the fact that after their testimony, they would be allowed to return to Mexico without criminal prosecution.

In his closing statement, Cron, who did not call any witnesses, told the jury that prosecutors failed to show that Tieng-Phou knew the women were undocumented. “Mr. Phou was working as a pimp and nothing more,” he said.

In this federal case, Cron said, the jury is not to determine guilt or innocence in pimping, but only whether he knew the women were illegal immigrants and harbored them.

Co-defendant Cheung pleaded guilty this week to charges of conspiracy and harboring illegal immigrants. He will be sentenced Sept. 27.