STUART — Former Bridge Day Spa employee Yong Wang on Wednesday was ordered to give up her Florida massage license related to her arrest in a three-county sex spa crack down disclosed by law enforcement in February.
Her sentence imposed Wednesday by Martin County Circuit Judge Sherwood Bauer included 18 days in the Martin County Jail, which he noted she served before posting bond after her arrest.
In what was described to Bauer as a revised plea deal with the state, Wang, 44, was allowed Wednesday to plead no contest to one count of engaging in prostitution, a second-degree misdemeanor that carried a maximum of 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.
Bauer in turn, threw out a no contest plea Wang entered March 18 to a reduced felony offense of deriving proceeds or support from prostitution. He also ordered her to pay court costs of $420 and told court clerks to return her passport.
Wang, who spoke in court through a Mandarin Chinese interpreter, initially faced a racketeering charge and a maximum of 15 years in state prison.
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Prosecutors dropped money laundering, engaging in prostitution and using a structure for prostitution charges. Records showed it’s the same plea deal four other Martin County spa workers arrested in the sprawling sex spa case received from state prosecutors.
Martin County sheriff’s investigators revealed the investigation and raids of four spas in Martin County on Feb. 19. Authorities focused on sex-for-pay allegations starting in July 2018 after a detective responded to a complaint from the Health Department regarding what appeared to be signs people were living in Bridge Day Spa in Hobe Sound.
Investigators linked Wang, who said she is a citizen of China, to Bridge Day Spa in Hobe Sound, according to court records.
Other spas in Indian River County and Jupiter also were closed by authorities.
The high-profile investigation included the arrest of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who was charged in February with two misdemeanor counts of soliciting prostitution related to visits to the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter.
In his case, state prosecutors are appealing a May ruling by a Palm Beach County judge who threw out as evidence secretly recorded video of Kraft inside Orchids of Asia on two separate occasions. His prosecution essentially is on hold until the appeal is settled.
The prosecutions of more than 200 other spa customers arrested in the dragnet also are in limbo as the state appeals similar rulings by four judges in Martin, Indian River and Palm Beach counties that suppressed video recorded by law enforcement inside day spas.
After Wang’s court appearance Wednesday, her Fort Pierce attorney, Edward Mosher, called her sentence “an appropriate outcome considering where we started with this back in March.”
Mosher had characterized Wang’s participation at the Bridge Day Spa as “one of the small, small people that happened to get pulled into” the sex-for-pay probe.
“She was a masseuse and I think the business models of these massage parlors is probably well known at this point,” he said outside court.
“They certainly performed some services that were probably improper under the law and my client’s involvement was just as one of those providers.”
Another former Bridge Day Spa worker, Li Ping Wang Borja, 49, on Oct. 18 pleaded no contest to prostitution and was ordered to forfeit her massage therapy license.
Three other women, Lixia Zhu, Shuang Lu and Gaomei Yang, are scheduled to appear before Bauer in December for sentencing, records show.
Two women with charges still pending in Indian River County, Liyan Zhang and Lanyun Ma, have court dates scheduled in December.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Former Bridge Day Spa worker sentenced in sprawling Martin County sex-for-pay prosecution
Reporting by Melissa E. Holsman / Treasure Coast Newspapers
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
