Sheriff's: 'Hostess Bar' Operated at Diamond Bar Home for Five Months

L.A. County Sheriff's investigators believe that a Hacienda Heights man occupied a Diamond Bar home and ran an illegal "hostess bar" there for around five months.

Sgt. Steve Kim of the Sheriff's Asian Gang Team said , came after an anonymous tip that alleged Chen had been extorting thousands of dollars from a Chinese couple at the Diamond Bar home.

An investigation in April that found Chen had intimidated the couple out of the home and began running a "hostess bar," where Kim said Asian women were recruited and hired to entice guests to buy drinks.

Kim said investigators have no evidence that prostitution took place at the home, located in a neighborhood near the intersection of Pathfinder Road and Canyon Ridge Road.

"The neighbors did notice people going in and out but they didn't think anything of it until the police were there," Sgt. Kim said.

Kim said he suspects that the customers who came to the hostess bar were invited guests to the home.

Detectives have not spoken to any of the women believed to be working at the home, Kim said, and he said there is no evidence to indicate where Chen allegedly recruited the hostesses.

Kim said that Chen vacated the home after several months and had plans to open a similar illegal nightclub in the Rowland Heights area.

Investigators also found that Chen had opened a pet shop in the 1400 block of Nogales Avenue in Rowland Heights.

Both Chen and Hu are Chinese nationals in the U.S. on tourist visas, according to sheriff's reports.

The Chinese couple that had been renting the Diamond Bar home returned to find extensive damage to the home and an AK-47 rifle that investigators said Chen left behind.

On June 22, detectives from the sheriff's Asian Gang Team searched Chen's home on Del Prado Drive in Hacienda Heights and found narcotics in the restroom, where investigators said Chen's eight- and nine-year-old children could have reached the drugs.

Investigators also found 15 large dogs at the home that were being kept in a hot garage and crates that Kim said were "much too small for their size."

The L.A. County District Attorney filed formal charges against Chen and his wife, Hu, on July 5.

Chen was charged with felony unlawful possession of an assault weapon, felony impersonation of another for representing himself as someone else when he was first contacted by deputies at the Hacienda Heights home, felony animal cruelty, felony possession of methamphetamine, and two counts of misdemeanor child endangerment.

Hu faces charges of animal cruelty, possession of methamphetamine, and two counts of child endangerment, all misdemeanors.

Both Chen and Hu were released after posting $30,000 bail each.

The couple's children were taken into protective custody and later released to relatives by the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services.

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