Taiwan exec pleads guilty for underpaying Filipino maid

KANSAS CITY, Missouri—A Taiwanese representative charged with violating US labor laws by underpaying and overworking her Filipina housekeeper had agreed to plead guilty to the charge, her lawyer said on Thursday (Friday in Manila).

Hsien Hsien Liu, director general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (Teco) in Kansas City, was charged in federal court on Nov. 10 with fraud in foreign labor contracting. She faced up to five years in prison and a $250,000-fine.

The court entered a not guilty plea on her behalf at her first appearance last week.

Liu’s lawyer, Jim Wirken, said on Thursday that Liu would plead guilty at a hearing on Friday.

He said he is seeking to have Liu sentenced to probation and deported.

“We’re going to plead guilty to the single charge that’s against her,” he said.

Wirken said an agreement he was seeking with federal prosecutors also included Liu, 64, paying the housekeeper, who complained to authorities about her treatment. He said another previous housekeeper who witnesses said in an FBI affidavit filed in the case also claimed Liu treated her badly would also receive a payment from Liu.

Wirken said he could not disclose the amounts of the proposed payments on Thursday but said they were “not insignificant.”

“That’s just the right thing to do under the circumstances,” he said.

Don Ledford, spokesperson for the US attorney’s office in Kansas City, declined comment.

According to prosecutors, Liu’s Kansas City Teco office maintains unofficial relations between the United States and Taiwan and is similar to a foreign government consulate, although the US doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state.

Prosecutors have said they believe Liu is the first foreign official to face a fraud in foreign labor contracting charge in the United States. Others have been prosecuted for mistreating domestic workers, but Liu is accused of violating a law covering the recruitment of foreign workers and their transport into the United States on fraudulent terms.

An FBI affidavit claims Teco recruited the housekeeper in the Philippines in September 2011. According to the woman’s visa application, her two-year employment contract called for her to be paid $1,240 a month, work 40-hour weeks and to be entitled to overtime pay.

Prosecutors claim the woman was actually paid $400 to $450 a month, worked 16- to 18-hour days and was monitored with video surveillance equipment at Liu’s suburban Kansas City home in Johnson County, Kan. They also say Liu took the woman’s passport and was “verbally abusive.”

The US State Department did not immediately return a call seeking comment on Thursday.