Posted: 02/09/2011 07:50:41 AM MST

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_17333223?source=most_viewed

A federal jury has convicted a Downtown hotel owner of conspiracy, money laundering and lying to Internal Revenue Service officials.

Song U. Chon, 55, owner of the Gateway Hotel, was convicted Friday.

Chon was on trial last week with two co-defendants, Alejandro Rico, 54, and Manuel Cardoza, 47. Rico worked as a clerk at the hotel.

Chon, Rico and Cardoza were found guilty of conspiring to smuggle and harbor undocumented immigrants for financial gain. Chon also was convicted of money laundering and three counts of making a false statement on an income tax return.

Chon, a Korean immigrant, faces a total of up to 45 years in prison, while Rico and Cardoza both face up to 10 years. Their sentencing date has not been scheduled.

During the trial before U.S. District Judge Frank Montalvo, prosecutors showed jurors evidence that from June 2003 to May 2009, the three men conspired to devise a plan to smuggle undocumented immigrants into the U.S. from Mexico, Central America, South America, Eastern Europe and Southwest Asia.

The men allowed the immigrants to stay at the Gateway Hotel and other locations in El Paso. They provided the immigrants with food and clothing until relatives or a "sponsor" paid a $2,000 fee.

Once the fee was paid, prosecutors said, the immigrants were taken to their destinations in the U.S.

Prosecutors also accused Chon of laundering the money he gained from the conspiracy by skimming and hiding between $300 to $400 a day from the hotel's gross receipts.

Chon also made false statements on his corporate income tax records for his business, YCL Inc., for 2005, 2006 and 2007, by understating the yearly gross receipts for the hotel by about $250,000 to $300,000 a year, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors seek to seize the Downtown hotel and $1 million they claim is from illegal proceeds. A court hearing on the forfeiture has been scheduled for March.

For years, immigration raids have taken place at the hotel, which advertised a $44-a-night room rate. Busts included 126 immigrants Feb. 24, 2006, and two Eastern European "special interest aliens" found June 4, 2003, an agent with U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement said during a court hearing after Chon's arrest.

Authorities said wire-tapped telephones, financial records and other evidence showed that the hotel was working with smugglers. Hotel guest-registration cards for the immigrants were labeled "Doña Chila," an alias belonging to Maria Isidra Luna-Avila, who also was arrested on suspicion of participating in the smuggling ring.

Luna-Avila was sentenced in May to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to a charge of bringing and harboring undocumented immigrants.