Two women arrested on prostitution charges after authorities busted a Woodlawn tanning salon, alleging it was secretly a brothel, have avoided convictions in Baltimore County District Court in Towson.
The Baltimore County State?s Attorney?s Office on Tuesday dropped a charge of prostitution against Soo Mi Lee, 28, of McLean, Va., after she pleaded guilty to operating a massage parlor without a license.
Lee was sentenced to unsupervised probation before judgment, meaning she avoided a conviction.
In December, Baltimore County District Court Judge Norman Stone acquitted Nan Taylor, 48, of Colorado Springs, Colo., of two prostitution charges from the Moon Light Tanning and Spa in Woodlawn.
Taylor?s attorney, Gary Maslan, said prosecutors did not have enough evidence against his client to gain a conviction.
“They never established my client participated in anything,” he said. “She happened to be there on the premises.”
Federal and state authorities raided the tanning salon in August, alleging it was a brothel, and found $21,000 in cash and a detailed log of customers.
The Baltimore Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Moon Light was part of a network of similar establishments as far north as Rhode Island and south to Washington, D.C., that employed Korean women smuggled into the United States who worked as prostitutes to repay their transportation debts.
Federal agents arrested three other women ? Sun Im An, 44, Kum Ok Lowery, 53, and Mi Ja Park, 41 ? and five more were found hiding in secret compartments when officials broke down the door in the raid.
Baltimore County police said they stopped men coming to patronize Moon Light after the raid, checking them for outstanding warrants and sending them on their way.
