February 15, 2000

FLUSHING MINISTER CONVICTED OF SEXUALLY ASSAULTING NIECE;

 FACES UP TO 31 YEARS IN PRISON

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today the conviction of Jung Woo Lee, 52, formerly of 150-51 9th Avenue, Whitestone, on charges of sodomy, rape, attempted rape and sexual abuse after a seven day jury trial. He will be sentenced by Supreme Court Justice Richard L. Buchter on March 2nd and faces up to 31 years in prison.

District Attorney Brown said, "The defendant attacked a young woman, his niece, who had been delivered into his care so that she could attend college in America. She was alone in this country and was terribly betrayed by someone who she should have been able to trust. She fled home to Korea where her family encouraged her to return to this country and tell law enforcement officials what had happened to her. I applaud her courage in stepping forward and telling her story."

"According to the defendant's own testimony," District Attorney Brown continued, "he was attracted to his niece and pursued her in his own home." The trial testimony showed that when she resisted his advances, he threatened to kill her. He attacked her again three weeks later, threatening to choke her if she did not stop struggling. She told her aunt of the attacks but received no support from her.

The victim, who had come to study English as a second language at Fordham University, was supposed to stay with her aunt, uncle and cousins from May until December 1998. When she had been there less than a week, her uncle told her, according to his own testimony, that he was attracted to her. He told the court that she crossed her legs like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. She flew back to Korea in early July unable to risk staying with her aunt and uncle, giving up her courses.

After his testimony, the trial prosecutor asked that the defendant be remanded to jail because with a verdict imminent there was concern that he might flee the country. The Court agreed and he was returned to jail.

Assistant District Attorney Karen Migdal of the District Attorney's Career Special Victims Bureau, which is under the supervision of Bureau Chief Marjory D. Fisher and Deputy Chief Kenneth M. Appelbaum and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney Gregory L. Lasak of Major Crimes, was the trial prosecutor.

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