The drivers would circle Koreatown, piloting a van crammed with social gathering ladies. The so-called doumi — decked out in bikini tops, brief skirts and tight clothes — have been trying to get employed at one of many many karaoke bars that fill the neighborhood.
Doumi drivers, named for the hostesses they transport, may make $40 an hour for every passenger employed to social gathering with karaoke clients. And every month, drivers would pay a portion of their income to Daekun Cho, a well known determine in Koreatown.
Authorities arrested Cho final yr, and he’s since been charged with 55 counts of extortion, one rely of tried extortion and one other of carjacking.
In a federal trial that unfolded in downtown L.A. this month, prosecutors painted Cho, 39, as a gangster who for years extorted month-to-month safety charges from karaoke bar house owners and doumi drivers, lots of whom have been within the nation illegally and didn’t communicate English fluently.
He carried out acts of violence on those that didn’t pay or who violated his guidelines, they stated in courtroom, together with beating one driver with a baseball bat and capturing a doumi within the neck. Prosecutors displayed photographs from Cho’s Instagram account and pictures of his tattoos to determine him as a member of the Grape Road Crips, a predominantly Black gang based mostly in Watts’ Jordan Downs housing challenge.
By the tip of the five-day trial, jurors would stroll away with a greater understanding of Koreatown’s underbelly and be left to find out Cho’s position in it.
“He needed everybody in Koreatown to learn about his energy and that he needed to be paid or else,” Asst. U.S. Atty. Jena MacCabe advised the jury on the trial’s begin.
However protection attorneys argued that drivers and karaoke bar house owners paid Cho to be a part of an “affiliation,” akin to a union member paying dues, and that in return he saved new golf equipment and drivers from horning in on their companies. They stated there was no definitive proof Cho was behind the baseball bat beating or the capturing.
“He tried to carry some order into this in any other case chaotic, grey market economic system,” Karen Sosa, who represented Cho, stated in her opening assertion. “Everyone on this case was paying to play.”
Joo Hun Lee testified throughout the trial that he first met Cho — identified within the neighborhood as “DK” — when Lee deliberate to start out an organization referred to as Plus driving doumi round Koreatown.
“I used to be advised if you wish to begin this type of work, you’ll have to get permission from a person referred to as DK,” Lee stated via a Korean interpreter. He testified that Cho advised him he was “a Korean gangster member.”
When Lee began Plus with a enterprise associate, Yun Soo Shin, round 2019, they started paying Cho $100 every month, via money or at occasions on Venmo, Lee testified. If he and his associate didn’t pay, he stated, “we weren’t capable of work.”
Drivers would pay a beginning payment of round $1,500 after which a month-to-month affiliation payment, in response to courtroom testimony.
On any given evening, Lee testified, he and Shin would transport 10 to fifteen ladies — whom they recruited via Craigslist — to completely different karaoke bars within the neighborhood. Generally they drove from 8:30 p.m. till 6 a.m. The drivers waited to see if the doumi have been employed. In the event that they weren’t, the drivers didn’t receives a commission.
“These ladies would go contained in the golf equipment, they usually’d be paraded in entrance of middle-aged businessman … and these center aged businessmen would resolve whether or not to rent any specific lady based mostly upon her appears to be like, appropriate?” Cho’s legal professional, Mark Werksman, requested.
“Sure,” Lee responded.
Werksman referenced the principles Lee and Shin set for the ladies they employed. Amongst them: no intercourse with clients and no medicine. Every lady was anticipated to work at the very least 4 nights per week.
One rule, displayed in courtroom, instructed doumi to not misinform shoppers and drivers about cash, stating that they solely charged $120 plus ideas for the primary two hours and $60 plus ideas for each extra hour.
Cho additionally set guidelines, witnesses testified. If he advised drivers to not go to a sure karaoke bar they usually went, they might be penalized. The identical went for karaoke bar house owners who referred to as drivers who Cho advised them have been banned.
The primary penalty was $200. The following, $400, in response to texts despatched by Cho that have been offered in courtroom.
“If u violate our rule yet another time,” one textual content to a driver learn, “U gonna see the true demon.”
Shin testified that he and Lee stopped paying in early 2021, after Cho raised costs. Inside months, Shin testified, Cho and one other man confronted him outdoors McQueen Karaoke on Western Avenue, dragged him out of his automotive and beat him with aluminum baseball bats, breaking his arm.
The opposite assailant then stole the Honda Odyssey that Shin had rented to drop off two doumi that evening.
Shin stated Cho was carrying a masks with a skeleton on it throughout the assault, however that he was capable of determine him by the highest half of his face and his voice. Prosecutors displayed a photograph Cho posted on Instagram after the assault carrying what seemed to be the identical masks.
The companions closed their enterprise quickly after, and Lee left the state.
One other witness, who stated he works at Live performance Karaoke, testified that he needed to pay Cho $600 every month as a result of “he threatened that if we don’t pay, we’ll lose enterprise and he’ll do one thing to us.” After he stopped paying, he advised the jury that Cho threatened him that he higher not see him within the neighborhood.
The witness stated he stopped going to Koreatown.
Prosecutors performed surveillance footage depicting a capturing outdoors a karaoke bar on July 15, 2022, which they stated was carried out by Cho. Police physique digital camera footage confirmed a doumi who had been shot within the neck saying, “Assist, assist. Please, assist.”
One other doumi driver, who requested to not be recognized out of worry for his security, testified that he had paid Cho each month for 4 years earlier than deciding to cease. Then, one evening in January 2023, Cho punched him within the face and threatened to kill him, he stated. The motive force started working with investigators and agreed to put on a wire the subsequent time he made a fee.
Cho modified the assembly location thrice, asking at one level, “U referred to as cops?” earlier than lastly telling the driving force to offer the money to an middleman, in response to textual content messages displayed in courtroom.
Through the trial, Werksman and Sosa sought to solid doubt on the credibility of the witnesses, portray them as having motive to lie. They highlighted their immigration standing and referenced their potential to acquire U Visas, which give immigrant victims of sure crimes the prospect to dwell and work legally within the U.S. in the event that they cooperate with authorities.
In his closing argument, Werksman referred to as the witness testimony “muddled,” “evasive” and “incomplete.” Werksman referred to the drivers and Cho as “bros.”
“These drivers fashioned an affiliation to carry a modicum of order to the jungle,” Werksman stated.
Werksman added that the funds to Cho have been a “pittance.”
“Was {that a} safety racket or was it a voluntary, if at occasions barely chafing and unwelcome, affiliation of avenue rats who wanted to band collectively to attain their frequent aim of exploiting hard-working, horny younger ladies who earned just a few hundred {dollars} of money each evening abasing themselves for the pleasure of karaoke bar patrons?” Werksman stated.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Kevin Butler stated the 56 counts tied to an extortion fee are “only a fraction of the true quantity of extortion that [Cho] was liable for.”
“Cho was a predator. He preyed and stalked and hunted — as he referred to as it — his victims: individuals in Koreatown who he thought both couldn’t or wouldn’t go to police,” Butler stated throughout his closing argument. “He gave every considered one of them an not possible, false alternative: Pay him or get banned. Pay him or face the consequence. Pay him or flee the state. Pay him or get ripped out of your automotive and overwhelmed with aluminum baseball bats. Pay him or get shot within the neck.”
On Tuesday morning, the jury got here again with its verdict: Responsible on all counts.
