Sunnyvale cop jailed for bribes, returning sex slaves

David Lee Miller Jr., 43, a former crime scene investigator, defensive tactics instructor and longtime SWAT team member with the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety, pleaded guilty in January 2005 to two counts of conspiracy to commit extortion.

At a hearing today in San Jose, when U.S. District Judge James Ware asked Miller whether he had anything to say, he said in a barely audible voice, "I think I'll be sick if I talk." Miller declined comment afterward.

Miller was arrested as part of a scheme to smuggle women from Korea to the United States, charge them tens of thousands of dollars for the trip and then force them to work as prostitutes at the two South Bay brothels until the debt was repaid.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Nedrow said today that Miller jeopardized the safety of his colleagues when he alerted brothels to impending raids. Miller also helped recover women who fled their debt and the sex trade, authorities said.

Miller, a 15-year veteran, was a patrol officer on the 4 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift throughout the period of his criminal activity, police said. Among other duties, that shift would have required him to visit bars and nightclubs, including two sometimes-rowdy Korean "hostess bars": the Crystal Palace Nightclub and Ok Yeo Bong, Korean for "Beautiful Woman on a Mountain."

Both clubs were legitimate businesses offering food, drink and conversation with attractive women to a mostly Asian male clientele, according to court documents. But clients at both could purchase sex on request, according to investigators who used covert recordings, informants and search warrants to investigate both establishments.

Nedrow said Miller "used his position of authority to put very vulnerable people in a position where he was getting sexual benefits from them." The prosecutor said Miller's crimes were "appalling" and showed a "complete contempt for the laws of the community" and urged Ware to sentence Miller to a year in prison.

But Miller's attorney, Paul Meltzer, said his client had already been punished because he has lost his job, his wife has divorced him and his reputation has been ruined.

Miller's mother abandoned the family when he was 7 or 8 years old, and Miller's depression worsened after the "gut-wrenching" loss of his 24-year-old brother in a motorcycle crash, a tragedy that marked the first time Miller saw his father cry, Meltzer said in court papers. Miller suffers from depression, nightmares and insomnia, his attorney said.

Compounding Miller's stress was the fact that he shot and killed a knife-wielding suspect in August 2000 in a case of justifiable homicide, Meltzer said.

The defense attorney suggested a sentence of six months of home detention for Miller, a former Santa Cruz firefighter who, after losing his job in Sunnyvale, worked as a salesman for an alarm company. Miller, who is out on bail, is now a farrier, putting shoes on horses, Meltzer said.

Federal probation officials argued for an 18-month prison sentence, saying Miller told them that "counseling is a sign of weakness. I have no weaknesses."

Ware crafted a compromise of sorts: He ordered Miller to spend a year and a day in prison beginning June 29. By boosting the sentence to more than a year, the extra day would make Miller eligible to have his prison term reduced, possibly by a few weeks, for good behavior.

Crystal Palace owners employed Miller, paying him in cash and sex, and would contact him at the main Sunnyvale switchboard or through his personal cellular phone.

Miller accompanied club owners to Hawaii and Las Vegas to find women who had fled their debt, Nedrow said.

Ok Yeo Bong owner Sang Ye Han, whom authorities said has a previous record for inducing Korean women to enter the United States illegally, was sentenced last year to 33 months in prison. Han told an undercover agent that she had gotten to know a police officer named "David" around 1994 when he would come to her bar and "harass" her, court papers said.