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Illegal immigrants hired for massage parlor work

FLUSHING — A couple pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court last week to hiring illegal immigrants to work at a massage parlor they owned in upstate New York.

According to court papers filed last week, 46−year−old Ying Dong and her husband, 49−year−old Bing Lu, both of Flushing, owned a massage parlor in Tonawanda, N.Y., a suburb of Buffalo.

The parlor, called Eastern Spa, was one of dozens of locations along the Eastern Seaboard raided during a 2007 federal prostitution and human trafficking operation.

Dong and Lu pleaded guilty on March 2 to lesser charges of hiring illegal immigrants, according to court papers. The couple is scheduled to be sentenced in June and each face up to five years in prison, the court papers said.