By Philip Newman
A Flushing Korean couple has pleaded guilty to charges that they brought to children to America, enslaved them, and forced them to work outside the house for wages their captors demanded, the Queens DA said.
They kids, unrelated to the couple, were also ordered to perform massages and clean the home of their bosses over a six-year period, DA Richard Brown said.
Sock Young Park, 50, and Jeong Taek Lee, 54, of 196th Street, pleaded guilty to labor trafficking, according to the DA.
Park will be sentenced to six months in jail followed by five months probation, while Lee will be sentenced to five months probation.
The sister and brother, who were entrusted to the couple in January 2010, reported that Park struck them with various objects and that they were forced to sleep on a closet floor.
“This case is very disturbing,” Brown said. “The Flushing pair were supposed to provide a safe home for the youngsters, but instead the young children were held hostage and forced to work long hours on behalf of the couple.”
He pointed out that the children’s passports were seized and the youngsters were coerced into performing household jobs and working outside the home, only to have to turn over all their earnings to the couple.
The victims have been reunited with their biological parents in Korea.
