By Michael Hinkelman
The Philadelphia Daily News
PHILADELPHIA -- A Philadelphia restaurateur admitted in federal district court yesterday that he schemed with former Philadelphia Police Inspector Daniel Castro to extort money from a man who owed money to the restaurant owner’s business partner.
William Wong, who pleaded guilty to two extortion-related charges, struck a plea agreement with the government, but details were sealed by the court, which generally means a defendant is cooperating with prosecutors.
No date was set to sentence Wong, 51, of Center City. He could face 27 to 33 months behind bars under advisory sentencing guidelines.
The charging papers said that Wong and Allan Kats, 54, of Huntingdon Valley, were business associates. The pair have run Vietnamese restaurants in the Far Northeast and Lower Bucks County.
Authorities alleged that Kats lent a businessman, identified in court as Romeo Calleung, $36,000 to invest in a new nightclub in 2009.
The club never opened, and Calleung later repaid Kats $10,000 toward what he owed, authorities said.
The indictment said Castro had told Wong and Kats that he knew someone who could help them collect the debt.
Castro allegedly asked an FBI informant to contact Wong and put him in touch with a debt “collector.” Castro had previously asked the collector to help him recoup $90,000 that he’d lost in a real-estate deal, authorities said.
The collector was actually an undercover FBI agent.
As part of the conspiracy to extort money from Calleung, authorities said, Wong and Kats instructed the collector to keep 10 percent of the money he obtained from Calleung as compensation.
Authorities said the men authorized the collector to use force to induce Calleung to repay Kats and monitored the progress through phone calls and meetings with the informant and undercover agent.
Kats pleaded guilty last month to an attempted-extortion charge and is to be sentenced in May. Castro has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is scheduled for trial next month.
Copyright 2011 Philadelphia Newspapers, LLC