When you hear someone named Chomphoonut Dongird was sentenced to four years for pimping trafficked young women you’d probably want to check whether the person in question was a man or woman before posting the story on your allegedly-reputable wire service. But not if you were the Associated Press, which a) wants to shake down or sue us disreputable bloggers for linking to their stories and b) just arbitrarily assumed last month that Dongrid is a man.
She’s not. A pimp, yes, and a classic extortionist, false-pretenses sex-trafficker to boot yes…
At least two of the women were forced to perform sex acts on customers to make extra money, which was garnisheed by Dongird to pay for their immigration, made possible by sham marriages to American men who were paid thousands to pose as their husbands.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ye-Ting Woo said the women were made to work up to 16 hours a day, seven days a week, for virtually no pay. And Dongird scared them into staying hidden indoors lest they be discovered by immigration authorities.
But not a man.
(Via The Slog)
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And just to be clear, it doesn’t matter that the women she contacted in Thailand may have already been sex workers, as is often the case. What matters is that she coerced them to work for her. And, exploiting U.S. immigration law as well as anti-prostitution laws, she used fear of immigration authorities to intimidate her victims.
