Child rapist sent to prison for ‘brutal’ assaults
NORRISTOWN » As he continued to profess his innocence, a Cheltenham Township man learned he will spend at least 18 years behind bars after he was convicted by a jury of raping a 10-year-old girl more than 15 years ago.
In Joong Kim, 69, formerly of the 7800 block of New Second Street, showed no emotion on Thursday in Montgomery County Court as he was sentenced to 18 to 36 years in a state correctional facility in connection with three incidents that occurred when the girl was in his company between April 2001 and March 2002.
“This brutal, brutal situation left indelible marks on the victim,” Judge Garrett D. Page said as he imposed the sentence.
Kim, who knew the victim’s family, was 58 years old at the time of the sexual assaults and the girl was 10. The assaults took place at Kim’s home and at the victim’s Cheltenham home while she was in Kim’s company, according to court documents.
During a highly emotional trial last September, the victim, now an adult, confronted her abuser, and a jury convicted Kim of multiple charges of rape and aggravated indecent assault. The jury acquitted Kim of three other charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.
Page recalled that during the four-day trial, the woman avoided eye contact with Kim, reacted emotionally when she viewed a photograph of Kim and positively identified him as the man who raped her when she was a child.
“It was grueling on her to revisit these incidents that occurred 15 years before,” Page recalled.
The judge’s sentence included several consecutive prison terms sought by Assistant District Attorney James Price.
“Behind closed doors he isolated her and raped her at the age of 10, not once, not twice but three times,” Price argued. “What this man did to this girl had traumatized her and scarred her for 15 years, a cross she had to bear for 15 years.”
The trial had been delayed for more than a decade because Kim, who was represented by defense lawyer John W. Aitchison, left the U.S. during the investigation in 2002.
“This man fled from prosecution. It’s despicable,” Price argued.
Fourteen years later, on July 28, 2016, Kim was detained by police at JFK Airport in New York on a warrant from Cheltenham police after attempting to enter the country from South Korea.
Testimony revealed that Kim believed it had been safe for him to return home. But U.S. Customs officials checked Kim’s background and found the active warrant from 15 years ago and they arrested him.
“This is a case where justice is delayed but justice is done,” Page remarked.
The defense strategy during the trial was that Kim was falsely accused and that someone else had committed the sexual assaults.
According to court documents and trial testimony, the girl was examined at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia after the allegations came to light in 2002 and she was diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease that resulted from the rape incidents.
Kim, who was assisted in court by a Korean interpreter, did not address the judge before learning his fate. Aitchison argued to the judge that Kim had no prior criminal record.
“He’s maintained his innocence throughout this trial. Mr. Kim does intend to appeal the jury’s verdict,” Aitchison said on Kim’s behalf.