SAN DIEGO (CN) — The owners of a San Diego spa where the groans and moans of sex workers engaged in their trade where so loud that they disrupted a nearby church will pay $600,000 each to settle civil and criminal cases against them.
“Thanks to the diligent efforts of SDPD, we’ve been able to shut down this illegal operation and restore peace to the neighborhood,” San Diego City Attorney Mara W. Elliott said in a statement. “We will closely monitor this operator to ensure they do not continue these illegal activities at another location. If they do, we will come after them with the full force of the law.”
The settlement bars the owners of Ocean Spa in the Kearny Mesa neighborhood of the city from operating any other massage business again. It also forces the defendants to pay $600,000 each in civil penalties, cover the $50,000 cost of the San Diego Police Department’s investigation and to donate $6,000 to a local human trafficking nonprofit, though $1.9 million of the $2.2 million judgment is stayed pending compliance with the settlement.
One of the owners and operators of the spa, Sean Sheng Jun Xu, also pleaded guilty to one felony and one misdemeanor labor code violation. He was also fined $10,000 and sentenced to two years’ probation.
“SDPD’s vice unit is out there every day, uncovering the underground illegal activities that plague our communities,” San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl in a press release. “This massage parlor was a front for prostitution and its activities were a disruptive nuisance to neighbors.”
According to a complaint filed by the San Diego City Attorney’s office in January, neighbors of Ocean Spa complained about people having sex in parked cars in front of the business, loud sexual noises that disturbed a Bible study session at a nearby church, and male students — some minors — being propositioned for sex by female employees wearing skimpy clothing.
After numerous noise complaints, SDPD’s vice unit and the city attorney’s nuisance abatement unit started investigating the spa. At least four times during the investigation, employees propositioned undercover cops. Four people were later arrested on prostitution charges.
In the complaint, the city claimed Kearny Management Services, the owners of the property, its chief executive Asim Guha Roy, Ronald L. Topp, another property owner Junling Liu, an owner and operator of the spa and Xu violated California’s anti-prostitution Red Light Abatement Act, public nuisance law and unfair competition law.
“This case is an excellent example of law enforcement responding to a community’s well-founded concerns and then working together to achieve a resolution that is leaving a neighborhood safer and holding individuals accountable for their illegal activities, including the likelihood that victims were being trafficked,” San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan said in a statement. “We will continue collaborating with our law enforcement partners to use every legal avenue available to us to prevent businesses from operating as an obvious front for prostitution and other crimes.”
Attorneys for the defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.