A former San Diego police detective and three others charged by federal prosecutors with operating massage parlors that offered commercial sex services pleaded guilty Tuesday.
Peter Griffin, 78, a former vice detective and attorney, owned and operated five businesses in California and Arizona with his co-defendants between 2013 and 2022, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The defendants advertised sexual services online and employed women to perform those services, prosecutors said.
According to a grand jury indictment returned against the defendants, the businesses were located in San Diego, Escondido, Chula Vista, Spring Valley and Tempe, Arizona.
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The indictment states that Griffin was a San Diego police officer from 1975 until 2002, including time in the San Diego Police Department's Vice Unit, which investigates crimes related to prostitution. Following his retirement from the SDPD, he became a private investigator and operated his business, "Griffin PI," out of his San Diego home, the indictment states.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said Griffin used his experience as a former vice detective to evade law enforcement and regulatory agencies. On one occasion, he told an employee not to "open (her) mouth" about her work at one of his parlors, prosecutors allege.
Along with Griffin, co-defendants Kyung Sook Hernandez, 58, Yu Hong Tan, 56, and Yoo Jin Ott, 46, pleaded guilty Tuesday morning in San Diego federal court. The co-defendants' plea agreements state that they took part in the ownership and management of Griffin's businesses.
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According to Hernandez's plea agreement, she "used Griffin's law enforcement background to encourage spa employees to perform commercial sex services," including by telling one employee that Griffin had "connections" and that the employee should not "mess around."
Tan's plea agreement states she told two employees that offering sexual services at their parlor could be done "without fear of police involvement, because Griffin was a retired police officer."
Tan and Griffin also leased apartments in San Diego County where spa employees lived and paid rent through money earned by engaging in sex acts, the plea agreement states.
