The Oklahoman reports
The boss of a brothel for Oklahoma’s pot farms has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking.
“I’m so sorry,” Feng Jiang said through a translator at his sentencing on Friday, July 11. “I have never hurt anybody. I never forced them to do anything.”
Oklahoma County District Judge Cindy Truong chose the punishment.
Jiang, 46, pleaded no contest in June to two counts of human trafficking for commercial sex. He pleaded guilty to one count of possession of proceeds from unlawful activity.
He had faced up to life in prison. Prosecutors sought a sentence of 10 years in prison and 10 years on probation.
The victims came from China, oftentimes believing they would have legitimate jobs in the United States, prosecutors told the judge. One said she thought she was going to be a karaoke bar hostess.
“These women are treated as property rather than human beings,” Assistant Attorney General Emily Grossnicklaus said at the sentencing. “Mr. Jiang has been doing this since 2018.”
The judge also fined Jiang $30,000.
In announcing the sentence, Truong made clear she wants it to be a deterrent. She said she hopes he tells others what happened to him.
“It is not acceptable to do this,” she said.
The judge agreed to review her decision June 15. Jiang was given credit for time served in the Oklahoma County jail. He faces deportation to China once he is released from prison.
A state multicounty grand jury indicted Jiang in September 2023. He was arrested a month later in New York City.
After his arrest, Attorney General Gentner Drummond said human trafficking was far two prevalent in Oklahoma. “Law enforcement has stepped up its efforts to stamp out this horrific criminal activity,” the AG said.
An anonymous tip in October 2022 led to an investigation of the brothel at a rented one-story house in northwest Oklahoma City.
“Evidence from the investigation shows many of the clients of the brothel were managers and administrators of commercial marijuana farms,” the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control said in a news release in 2023.
The address had constant traffic, a narcotics agent reported in a court affidavit.
Multiple times a day, vehicles, occupied by single men, arrived at the house, the agent reported. The men would stay less than an hour.
Evidence found in the trash from the location included envelopes with dollar amounts and Mandarin characters, boarding passes for women and dozens of used condoms. The investigation found women also were trafficked at other houses and at hotels.
Jiang was in charge of choosing the women, prosecutors told the judge in court papers before trial. He determined how long they would be under his oversight, the locations of the sex acts and the price.
He also created a website to post advertisements of the women, prosecutors disclosed.
Agents seized $19,104 from his home in Edmond during a raid on Feb. 23, 2023.
Jiang was born in China, the son of a fisherman, according to a presentence report prepared for the judge.
He said for the report that he came to the United States in 2000 after dropping out of middle school in China. He said he has worked at restaurants in New York and Massachusetts.
He has a pending human trafficking case in Massachusetts, according to the report. Prosecutors had planned to call at trial a girlfriend to testify that she used to work for him at a brothel in Massachusetts.
Oklahoma became known for a time as “the Wild West of Weed” after voters legalized medical marijuana in 2018. Thousands of pot grows sprang up across the state. Many operated illegally, using “straw owners” to bypass residency requirement and sell their marijuana on the black market.
The attorney general has long blamed Chinese nationals for the issues.
At the end of 2022, 8,400 farms were operating with an active registration at the narcotics bureau. “Today, that number stands at approximately 2,100,” the bureau said Friday.
