Former University of the Cumberlands Student Sentenced to 145 Months for Child Pornography, Identity Theft, Extortion, and Computer Fraud
| U.S. Attorney’s Office October 08, 2009 |
LONDON, KY—A former University of the Cumberlands student was sentenced today to 145 months in prison for possession of child pornography, identity theft, extortion, and computer fraud.
In April of this year, a federal jury in London, Ky. convicted 23-year-old Sungkook Kim of Williamsburg, Ky. on one count of possession of child pornography.
Evidence at Kim’s trial determined that he possessed four videos of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct with adults. A week prior to the trial, Kim pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated identity theft, extortion, and felony computer fraud.
Testimony confirmed that in the fall of 2008, Kim sent more than 20 threatening e-mails to a female student at the college. Kim possessed sexually explicit images of the student, and through e-mail, threatened to distribute the images to others if the student didn’t produce additional sexual images of herself.
In addition, the evidence proved that in 2007 Kim was in the university’s science lab and noticed that a student had forgotten to log off a computer. Kim observed sexually explicit images of this student and loaded them onto his thumb drive.
Also, the proof at the trial established that Kim installed “keylogging” software on computers in the university computer lab to capture students’ login names and passwords to view private information. Keylogging software allows you to record keys that are typed.
Kim will have to serve at least 85% of his prison sentence. Following his release, he will have to register as a sex offender as required by federal law.
The Office of the Attorney General, Cyber Crimes Unit, investigated Kim last November for identity theft and extortion and discovered the child pornography images on Kim’s computer.
James Zerhusen, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, Timothy Cox, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Jack Conway, Kentucky Attorney General jointly made the announcement after Kim was sentenced.