Woman convicted of pimping from Irvine brothel and O.C. motels

A Los Angeles woman accused of running a lucrative brothel in Irvine and pimping out women at motels throughout Orange County pleaded guilty Friday to two felonies and was immediately sentenced to three years in prison.

Goan Suk Ko, 45, took in several thousand dollars a week from the brothel, where she placed at least one woman who performed sexual services for clients, police wrote in court documents.

The operation, run out of a sublet apartment on Main Street in Irvine, lasted three or four months before police shut it down in a sting operation on July 22 last year, according to court records.

But that did not stop Ko, police wrote.

She allegedly started setting up dates for prostitutes at motel rooms she rented in Costa Mesa, Irvine, Santa Ana and Garden Grove.

Police said they also discovered that Ko was using stolen or fake identities to lease other apartments in Irvine to be used for prostitution.

In total, Ko had five women working for her between July and October 2014, police wrote.

When police searched Ko’s Los Angeles apartment, they found $3,000 in cash, hundreds of condoms and more than 20 cellphones, some of which indicated communication with phone numbers listed in online ads for prostitution, according to court documents.

Police wrote that they also found “numerous ledgers” that contained the names of prostitutes, clients’ phone numbers, dates and dollar amounts.

Ko told police she made $80 to $90 off of each date she set up, letting the prostitute keep the rest, according to court documents.

In the documents, a detective estimates that one woman working in brothels like the ones run by Ko could see eight to 12 clients a day.

In court Friday, Ko spoke only briefly through a Korean interpreter, indicating she understood the consequences of her guilty plea.

She originally faced five counts each of pimping and pandering, but prosecutors dropped all but one count each after Ko agreed to submit to the charges.

The maximum sentence Ko faced for pleading guilty to those two counts was seven years and four months, but pursuant to the plea agreement negotiated with prosecutors, Orange County Superior Court Judge Carlton Biggs sentenced her to the three-year term.

Ko has been behind bars since her arrest in October.