Macau scion Alan Ho convicted of sexual exploitation over hotel prostitution racket
Alan Ho walked free yesterday, following some 14 months in prison
Harvard graduate and member of one of the most influential families in Macau, Alan Ho, was convicted of sexual exploitation on Thursday for his role in a major prostitution racket in the city’s landmark Hotel Lisboa.
But despite being handed a 13-month jail term, Ho – whose uncle is octogenarian casino king Stanley Ho Hung-sun – walked free because he had already spent 14 months in jail before trial, broadcaster Radio Macau reported.
More than a year after his arrest along with five others in a blaze of publicity which heralded an unprecedented Beijing-inspired crackdown on corruption and sleaze in the former Portuguese enclave’s gaming industry, the 69-year-old wine connoisseur was cleared of a separate charge of founding and leading a criminal organisation.
READ MORE: Alan Ho is a ‘very honest and just’ man, court told
Four of Ho’s co-accused were convicted of being accomplices in sexual exploitation but also walked free as a result of the time they spent in detention awaiting trial.
Only one of the six defendants, former Hotel Lisboa deputy manager Kelly Wang, faces the possibility of more jail time. She was handed two years and five months after the Court of First Instance concluded she had charged prostitutes fees to work in the hotel. Wang, who was also released, has 20 days to file an appeal or be sent back to jail.
During trial, the court heard that prostitutes had to pay 150,000 yuan (HK$178,000) to operate on the hotel’s premises.
Ho and the five others were arrested and detained in January 2015, but it took a year for the trial to start on January 8.