Officials: LI nail salon owner ran prostitution ring

A Queens woman who went by the name "Coco" used threats of violence and humiliation to coerce immigrant Korean women into working as prostitutes at two Long Island businesses purporting to be nail salons and spas, according to Suffolk officials.

Jin Hua Cui, whose home and businesses in Huntington Station and Hicksville were raided earlier this month, is the first person in Suffolk prosecuted under the state's 2007 felony human sex trafficking law, said Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota.

"Getting people to cooperate in these kinds of cases is very, very difficult," he said. "These women are terrified."

Many of the women did not speak English and were new to the country, said Suffolk police Det. John Rodriguez, who assisted in the investigation.

"If you're from a small village, you don't know the language, it can be easy to intimidate someone like that," Rodriguez said.

Cui pleaded not guilty to felony sex trafficking, promoting prostitution and conspiracy at her June 22 arraignment. She was held on $10,000 cash bail.

Cui, 44, who officials believe has worked on Long Island for several years, has in recent months posted job advertisements in Korean-language newspapers seeking nail salon attendants. But once the women responded, Cui threatened them, Spota said, at times saying that she would have them or their families killed by Chinese gangsters. Cui also threatened to abandon them penniless on Long Island or tell their families they were prostitutes if they refused to cooperate, Spota said.

Cui, who is Chinese and living in the United States under an expired visa, speaks Korean and is familiar enough with Flushing's tight-knit Korean community to know the power of the threat of embarrassment, said Jessica Spencer, a Suffolk assistant district attorney.

As many as eight women, all in their 30s and 40s, had dozens of clients a day at Jericho Nail Spa on Jericho Turnpike in Huntington Station and an unnamed "spa" near the Hicksville train station. Cui got the money, officials said, and the women kept tips.

One Craigslist ad earlier this month promised erotic services. Raids at the businesses and Cui's home, an 8,000-square-foot, Tudor-style house on 35th Avenue in Flushing, found $20,000 in cash, lingerie, shower massage tables, cases of condoms, baby oil and rubbing alcohol, officials said. "There was not a single bottle of nail polish found," Rodriguez said.

Officials are looking at Cui's business records to determine how much money she might have made. Cui was convicted in 2007 for misdemeanor prostitution, records show. Attempts to reach her current attorney were unsuccessful Tuesday.

Also charged was her driver, Sangyel Kuen, 53, of Flushing. Officials, who said Kuen ferried Cui and the women back and forth from Long Island to Queens, said he was charged with third-degree promoting prostitution. Two women present during the raids were charged with misdemeanor prostitution.