Published: October 13, 2009 12:14 pm      

Kim sentenced to 12 1/2 years for possession of child pornography, identity theft, extortion

Sungkook Kim, who pleaded guilty in April to 24 federal counts of identity theft, extortion and computer fraud at the University of the Cumberlands and was later convicted of possession of child pornography, was sentenced Thursday to 12-and-a-half years in prison.

“I apologize to the court,” Kim said Thursday before the sentenced was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Gregory VanTatenhove. “I feel really remorseful for hurting the victim.”

Kim, 23, admitted in April to downloading a sexually-explicit video from a fellow student’s e-mail and threatening to make it public unless she provided a video of her stripping.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Denny told the court Kim sent more than 20 e-mails to the victim, threatening to send the video to faculty, staff and students at the University of the Cumberlands unless she complied.

“I had some pornography of one victim,” Kim told the court at his rearrangement in April. “I wanted more, so I used materials I had to extort more from her.”

In addition, he said he used key-logging software to capture the e-mail user names and passwords off of the university’s computers in Nov. 2008.

Kim was convicted in April of one count of possession of child pornography. Officials at the U.S. Attorney’s Office said testimony showed Kim had found videos on his hard drive showing minors engaged in sexually-explicit conduct with adults.

This is the greatest mistake I have ever made in my life,” Kim said. “I will never do it again.”

VanTatenhove said after Kim completes his prison sentence, he will likely be deported. If Kim is able to return to the United States, he will be required to register as a sex offender.

Staff writer Dean Manning may be reached at dmanning@sentinel-echo.com.