Massage parlor owner seeks new trial on human trafficking, prostitution charges - TribLIVE

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A woman who owned and operated four massage parlors in Murrysville, Delmont and Monroeville will get a hearing on her appeal to withdraw her guilty pleas to promoting prostitution and participating in a human trafficking ring, a Westmoreland County judge decided Wednesday.

Judge Scott O. Mears granted the Post-Conviction Relief Act appeal hearing for Hui Xu, 46, formerly of Mt. Pleasant.

Xu claimed in July 2020 she deserved a new trial or to be able to withdraw her pleas on the grounds that ineffective counsel caused her to plead guilty. For her hearing, she will be provided access to a Chinese translator, Mears ordered.

Xu, prosecuted by the state Attorney General’s Office, is serving up to two years in jail as a result of pleading guilty in December 2019 to two counts of human trafficking and single counts of promoting prostitution and conspiracy to commit trafficking.

The appeal, filed by Pittsburgh attorney James DePasquale, states that Xu was barely functional in English and there was no Chinese interpreter when she was consulting with her attorney. Furthermore, she was not told that she could face deportation if she pleaded guilty to the charges.

She was advised to plead guilty in December 2019 because she had been incarcerated since that April.

The appeal stated that the proceedings violated Xu’s Sixth Amendment rights, which include the right to be informed of the nature and cause of the charges she faced.

DePasquale said Wednesday there was not a written guilty plea colloquy entered into the record by Judge Rita Hathaway when Xu was advised of her rights before entering the guilty plea.

“That should have been completed with the assistance of an interpreter,” DePasquale said.

DePasquale acknowledged there was a Chinese interpreter at the hearing. The Tribune-Review reported there was a Mandarin translator when she pleaded guilty in Hathaway’s courtroom.

The appeal was not acted upon earlier because there was no record of the original pleading in the docket or certification for a hearing filed in July 2020, Mears stated in his order. A hearing was further delayed by covid restrictions on the court, coupled with lack of a Chinese translator and Xu’s detention by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Xu owned and operated four Tokyo Massage Parlors, where state prosecutors allege prostitution was occurring. She and three others were arrested in March 2019 in a raid by state and local police.

Her late husband, Henry “Sonny” Caruso, 49, a Westmoreland County Prison guard, committed suicide in November 2018 after being suspended from his job as a result of the ongoing investigation.

Xu is being held in an ICE deportation detention center in Pennsylvania, DePasquale said. Xu’s judicial docket states she was in the Cambria County jail as of March 25.

An ICE spokesperson in Philadelphia could not be reached for comment on Xu’s status as a possible deportee.


Joe Napsha is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Joe at 724-836-5252, [email protected] or via Twitter .