Posted on: Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Man pleads guilty in attempt to smuggle woman into U.S.
By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer
A 42-year-old man from Singapore is facing up to 16 years in prison after admitting in federal court that he tried to smuggle a woman from China into the United States.
Eng Soon Ng pleaded guilty during a hearing Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Leslie Kobayashi to charges of passport fraud, encouraging unlawful entry into the United States by an alien, and alien smuggling.
Ng is scheduled to be sentenced April 19 by U.S. District Judge David Ezra. He was detained June 16 at Honolulu International Airport after a senior immigration official became suspicious about Ng, the woman he was traveling with and a 2-year-old boy. It was later determined that the boy is Ng's son, but that the woman is unrelated to him.
While being questioned by inspectors about her reasons for traveling to Hawai'i, the woman, Li Geng Weng, admitted that she is not related to Ng or the boy and that her family in China had arranged to pay others associated with Ng to smuggle her to Hawai'i.
Weng was traveling on a forged passport from Singapore. She told officials that Ng was to help her buy a ticket to New York after arriving in Hawai'i and that she planned to find a job in New York's Chinatown once she got there.
Weng told inspectors that she spent several days in Singapore with Ng and his son so the boy would be familiar with her and would learn to call her "mama." The boy has been returned to his mother in Singapore.
Weng was detained in Honolulu as a potential witness against Ng but was dismissed from the case Monday.
Assistant federal public defender Alexander Silvert, who represented Ng at the hearing Monday, said that Weng was considering filing for political asylum in the United States.
Silvert said that under federal sentencing guidelines, Ng probably will receive a sentence of 10 to 18 months.
Ng has agreed to cooperate with a federal investigation of a smuggling ring in which he took part.
