A 77-year-old Dallas, Texas woman has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for her role managing a Warren, Ohio massage spa swept up in a multi-year human trafficking investigation. Kum Cha Shugars pleaded guilty to fourth-degree felony promoting prostitution and fourth-degree felony attempted money laundering, and a Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas judge determined that active prison time was warranted given her history of running similar operations elsewhere.
According to WKBN, Judge Ronald Rice sentenced Shugars to 18 months, the maximum term available for a fourth-degree felony under Ohio law. Local law enforcement official Linda Powers said Shugars managed one of the local spas, and prosecutors said Shugars was at the front desk when an undercover officer asked for a masseuse, according to the prosecutor's release cited by the station. Shugars also agreed to forfeit her interest in bank accounts connected to the business.
Per the same account, Rice said a prison term was necessary because Shugars was involved in sexual exploitation at the spa. He also noted that Shugars repeated the same violations in Texas while her Ohio case was pending — she admitted she was on probation for identical offenses in Dallas at the time. As a result, Shugars was sentenced to 28 months in prison in Texas for that separate case, a term that will run concurrently with her Ohio sentence.
A Repeat Player in Illicit Massage Networks
Shugars' Texas case traces back to her work as a manager at the “Dallas Doll House,” a massage parlor brothel that federal authorities shut down in 2016. She pleaded guilty in June 2017 to misprision of a felony and using interstate commerce facilities in aid of a racketeering enterprise, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. During the original 2016 raid on that operation, task force officers seized roughly $420,000 in cash from a co-defendant's residence and another $70,000 from connected bank accounts, per WFAA-TV.
Shugars' Ohio conviction stems from an Ohio Attorney General prostitution-offenses sting that began in March 2023, when the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force served search warrants at Tiger Spa and Sunny Spa in Warren. Investigators dubbed the effort “Operation Saving Daylight,” and the case ultimately produced an 83-count indictment in May 2025 charging eight co-defendants with running a trafficking ring that trapped Korean women at the two spas, forcing them to live on site around the clock and perform sex acts for money over a five-year span, according to the Ohio Attorney General's Office.
Co-Defendants Faced Forfeitures, Federal Scrutiny
Shugars was arraigned in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court in May 2025, with bond set at $100,000, court records reported by The Vindicator show. That July, a Trumbull County judge turned over aspects of the case to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with several co-defendants facing possible deportation once their sentences are complete, the paper reported.
Through plea agreements finalized between late 2025 and early 2026, co-defendants in the case agreed to forfeit more than $676,500 in seized cash and assets, including $200,000 forfeited by property owner Suk Hui Starr, per the Ohio Attorney General's Office. While several of the ring's primary organizers received suspended sentences paired with large fines and forfeitures, Shugars was ordered to serve active prison time because of her direct management role at the spa and her prior federal conviction in Texas.
Part of a Broader Statewide Push
The Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force operates under the Ohio Organized Crime Investigations Commission within the Attorney General's office and is led locally by the Mahoning County Sheriff's Office. The unit targets commercial sex operations across Northeast Ohio, and Shugars' case is one piece of a much larger enforcement push: in May 2026, Attorney General Dave Yost announced that a statewide, weeklong sting targeting illicit massage parlors resulted in 122 arrests, 84 people charged, and the identification of 43 human trafficking survivors, according to ABC6 Columbus.
Hoodline has tracked this crackdown throughout the past year, including related indictments against massage parlor operators elsewhere in Ohio. Shugars' sentencing in Trumbull County closes out one strand of the Tiger Spa and Sunny Spa case even as federal immigration proceedings and asset forfeitures tied to her co-defendants continue to work their way through the system.
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