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| Gallego will be sentenced at the District Court for conspiring to live off the earnings of prostitutes |
One of the two Filipina domestic workers accused of conspiring
with their female employer to live on the earnings of prostitutes has pleaded
guilty to the charge and will be sentenced on Oct. 29.
The prosecution disclosed Jeanette Gallego’s decision to
admit the offence during a hearing of the case at the District Court on Sept
26.
Her co-worker, Joan Palpal-latoc, is also set to plead
guilty to the conspiracy charge, her lawyer said, but she and the employer will
not admit a second charge of laundering $14.85 million allegedly earned from the
sex booking service based in Mid-Levels.
Accused with Gallego, 47 and Palpal-latoc, 44, is their
employer, Heidi Wong Pui-ting, 69, who allegedly run the operation from her
flat in the luxurious Tavistock II residential tower on Tregunter Path.
Muhammad Shah, counsel for both Wong and Palpal-latoc, said
the maid was also ready to plead guilty to the charge of “conspiring to live on
the earnings of prostitutes.”
All the accused are out on bail.
The prosecutor proposed a trial to be held after 12 months,
when his team expects to have received and examined Treasury records of
suspected earnings from the operation that went into two bank accounts of Wong.
But JudgeW.K. Kwok
said that would be a long wait, as the case was already over a year old.
Shah also pressed for an earlier trial, saying Palpal-latoc
and Gallego have been jobless for more than a year now, and are only living on
charity from friends in the Consulate’s shelter.
Judge Kwok ordered Wong and Palpal-latoc to return to the
court on Nov 28 for possible updates on their case.
The three were arrested on May 17 last year along with Wong’s elder sister and a male
relative during a police raid.
Wong was allegedly the mastermind. Palpa-latoc and Gallego,
who were hired as domestic helpers, were caught manning terminals with several
dating websites that offered sex for a high fee and taking orders from
prospective foreign clients.
The prosecution further charged
that between Jan 1, 2010 and May 15, 2018, Wong and Palpal-latoc had kept money
suspected to have been earned from the online prostitution ring in Wong’s HSBC
account. – Vir B. Lumicao
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