PEABODY — In the fall of 2005, two Chinese women sat, terrified, before a Peabody District Court judge. They had been accused of engaging in prostitution out of a Peabody apartment.
Despite being offered a deal — admit to the charges and serve no jail time — the women, fearful of reprisals if they admitted anything, refused and insisted on a trial that ended with convictions and six-month jail terms for both.
Both women became hysterical after learning their sentence, crying and yelling as they were led out of the courtroom in an emotional scene.
Yesterday, five people were arrested by federal agents on charges related to the sexual trafficking of women from China, including the two who were arrested in an Essex Lane apartment by Peabody police in August 2005.
The arrests of Hong Wei, also known as "Ms. Chen," 37, and Xiang Hua "Darren" Zhang, both of Flushing, N.Y., and three Quincy men — Jing Liang "Mike" Chen, 30, Yu En "Eric" Jin, 26, and Dong Kai Chen, 41 — came after an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Internal Revenue Service, and Boston, Burlington and Quincy police.
According to the indictments unsealed yesterday, the five people arrested, over a 51รขÑ2-year period, engaged in a conspiracy to entice Asian women to travel to Massachusetts, where they were put to work as prostitutes.
The group advertised in various Chinese-language newspapers in California, New York and Massachusetts. The women would arrive at South Station by bus and were then taken to apartments all over the greater Boston area — including the apartment on Essex Lane where Peabody police conducted their raid.
The Chen name came up during the women's trial when the older of the two women, a 60-year-old former nanny, said she was working in California on a visa when she was offered a job by a "Mrs. Chen."
The job turned out to be managing the money and housekeeping in the Peabody apartment, while a younger woman engaged in sexual acts with customers.
Peabody police at the time said they were unable to locate either Chen or the California man who had rented the apartment, then paid for the balance of his lease after the women's arrest.
Throughout the trial, two men from New York sat silently in the back of the courtroom. After the verdict, they collected the $10,000 bail that had been posted for the younger woman, then 37, and left.
Shortly after the trial, the women's plight came to the attention of the U.S. State Department through the coverage of the case in The Salem News. Officials later said they could not disclose whether the women were ever granted so-called "T-visas," special visas granting permission for victims of human trafficking to remain in the United States.
Meanwhile, over the next four years through last month, the five defendants in the case continued renting apartments throughout greater Boston, where they would operate brothels.
According to the indictments, the traffickers would place ads in The Boston Phoenix or on Craigslist offering the sexual services of Asian women.
The women were often tricked into prostitution, after being told they would be doing other types of work, or coerced with threats or force, federal prosecutors allege.
That was the case in Peabody, prosecutors say in the indictment, which adds that both women were threatened with harm to themselves or others if they did not comply with the demands of "Ms. Chen" and "Mike."
"Ms. Chen" Wei and "Mike" Chen face up to life in prison on the sex-trafficking charges, 20 years for the forced labor charges and 10 years for harboring illegal aliens.
The others face up to five years in prison.
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