Woman running illegal Federal Way massage parlor sentenced

The other half of a couple who were charged with promoting prostitution at a Federal Way massage parlor, among many others, was sentenced to 38 months in prison.

Jing Emtage, 53, was sentenced July 25 to two years and two months in prison for seven counts of second-degree promoting prostitution. Her husband, Gerald Emtage, 49, was sentenced June 13, and he also received 38 months in prison for the same crimes.

The pair also received 12 months in prison for money laundering, to run at the same time as the 38-month sentence. Leading organized crime profiteering was part of the pair’s original charges, but that charge is no longer included after a plea agreement was reached.

With an offender score of seven that came from her current charges, the highest sentence Jing Emtage could have received was 43 months. The lowest sentence she could have received was 33 months.

According to Jing Emtage’s sentencing memorandum, in January 2018, she came to the U.S. from Singapore, where she had a successful massage therapy business. After three months of living in the U.S., Jing Emtage met Gerald Emtage, and they later got married in December 2019.

According to the memorandum, Jing Emtage began a massage business with Gerald Emtage, which was doing well until the pandemic, when they began to suffer financially. It was then that Jing Emtage sacrificed her morals to compensate for their financial detriment, and she lost sight of the immorality and illegality connected to her business.

In May 2023, Jing Emtage and Gerald Emtage were arrested for their massage parlor operations. The memorandum states that Jing Emtage was then placed on electronic home monitoring, and she then opened a small coffee shop at the Commons Mall food court in Federal Way. The shop is not doing well, but it has kept Jing Emtage busy and helped her earn enough money to pay for her daily survival needs, the memorandum states.

Additionally, the memorandum states that following her arrest, Jing Emtage was diagnosed with throat cancer. Despite undergoing surgery and cancer treatment, health complications persist, according to the memorandum.

“Ms. Emtage is a very spiritual person who believes that her current health issue is her Karmic punishment for her immoral decisions,” the memorandum states. “She believes her suffering caused by her health issues and her pending confinement are both necessary to balance the scale she had tipped based on her illegal and immoral behavior. Jing Emtage has shown nothing but remorse since the date she was arrested and the agreed sentence recommendation shows that.”

Details of the case

Documents state that the investigation into the pair’s massage parlors began in January 2021. Gerald and Jing Emtage were taken into police custody on May 2, 2023, after they were investigated from afar and up close for over two years.

“Over the course of two years, Gerald and Jing Emtage owned and operated an extensive criminal enterprise spanning four counties in Washington state and it appears that they may have been planning to expand their business to other states,” prosecutors allege in court documents. “During that time [they made] significant profits from the commercial sexual exploitation of dozens of women.”

Furthermore, prosecutors say: “While the victims slept and ate in the same buildings where they were required to provide sexual services to strange men, the defendants were living in a home valued at over a million dollars. While the defendants funneled over a million dollars through their bank accounts and hid hundreds of thousands of dollars in their home, there are no state records of any wages paid to their victims.”

The investigation began in January 2021 when a citizen complained to the King County Sheriff’s Office about a massage storefront in Seattle called Element Massage, according to charging documents. That business was owned by “J&J Relax Spa LLC,” which in turn was owned by the Emtages, according to police. Twelve known massage businesses were operated under J&J.

The Federal Way location, “Apple Massage,” was located in the 28700 block of Pacific Highway South. The 432-square-foot wood frame building, and the 12,000 square foot property it sits on, were bought in late 2022 by “J&J 28707 LLC,” according to King County property records.

According to the Secretary of State’s website, Gerald Emtage was the governor of J&J 28707 LLC, which was formed Oct. 27, 2022 — about two weeks before the company bought the property.

The building was previously a rock chip car repair store, a barbershop and a clothing store, based on historical photographs from Google Images.

According to police, undercover detectives entered the J&J storefronts and posed as customers, paying for regular, non-sexual massages, according to charging documents. During those undercover operations, an “offer and agreement for a sexual act(s) was verbally agreed upon for an additional fee or ‘tip’ then declined by the detectives,” according to police. During each visit, they were offered sex acts in exchange for a fee.

A building owner also reported to law enforcement that she had discovered the Emtages had built an unpermitted wall at one of the businesses to create an apartment with a kitchen, bathroom, shower and bedroom. Detectives further obtained evidence that the women working in those businesses resided there.

Furthermore, police saw Jing Emtage take women from one business to another, including taking one woman directly from Sea-Tac Airport to a massage business in Burlington. A seizure of Jing Emtage’s phone by federal Customs and Border Protection turned up extensive conversations about the storefronts, police said, which included discussions about collecting money, delivering condoms and moving workers around.

Detectives covertly followed the Emtages on a trip to Hawaii in April 2023, working with local police there to track them as they visited a storefront massage business in Honolulu. On an undercover visit to that business, a woman who spoke little English offered sex acts to a detective, who declined, according to police.