EXTRA CONTENT: Former University of the Cumberlands student gets 12 years for extortion scheme, child porn

Read the letter of apology sent to federal judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove.

A former University of the Cumberlands student was sentenced to just over 12 years in federal prison last Thursday for possessing child pornography, identity theft, fraud and attempts to extort a fellow student, and says in a letter to the judge who sentenced him that he is remorseful for his actions and is working to improve his life while incarcerated.

Sungokook Kim, 23, a South Korean citizen who was born in Thailand was given the sentence by U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove in federal court in London.

Kim had pleaded guilty to every charge of a 25-count indictment except one – a single charge of possessing child pornography. He was found guilty on that charge following a trial earlier this year.

Investigators first became interested in Kim after a female student at Cumberlands reported to police that she was the victim of an attempted extortion scheme via email sent from a Yahoo! Account in October of last year. Kim claimed to have sexually explicit video footage of her and threatened to distribute it to her friends and professors if she did not make another similar video of herself. In all, 21 emails were sent with the threats. Williamsburg Police, along with the help of the Kentucky Attorney General’s cybercrime unit, allegedly tracked the messages to Kim’s personal home computer, and a couple other computers on the University of the Cumberland’s campus.

According to investigators, Kim was in the University’s computer lab in 2007 and noticed that the victim had not signed out of her e-mail account. He gained access and found the videos of her. Investigators claim Kim gained access to a total of 97 separate accounts at the University by installing "key logger" software on computers at the school that would email back to him keystrokes made at the machines. Administrative as well as student accounts were compromised.

Authorities say Kim was questioned and admitted to sending the emails. According to FBI Special Agent Donnie Kidd, who filed the affidavit in federal court that led to the recent charges, Kim allowed police to have his computer equipment, including a one terabyte external hard drive. During a search of the hard drive, investigators stumbled upon two pornographic videos. One, a 28-minute-long clip, allegedly portrays several adult males engaging in sexual intercourse with girls between the ages of three and seven-years-old. The other shows a girl from 10-13 years old in a shower.

Authorities say both videos were known to investigators and were produced in Cambodia by a Florida man who traveled to the country to make them. He was arrested in 2006 and convicted in connection with the videos.

At trial, Kim claimed he did not know the nature of the videos in questions, saying he had an addiction to pornography and was downloading masses of videos via a peer-to-peer file sharing service and would often not open them to view until much later.

Kim was indicted on the charges in mid-December 2008 and has remained in jail since his arrest last November.
In a letter to Van Tatenhove, Kim apologizes for his actions.

"Words can’t explain how honestly sorry I am for the evil and harmful deeds I have committed toward those who had nothing against me," Kim writes. "I didn’t just want to say ‘I’m sorry, and I’ll never do it again’ because countless people have said it without sincerity, making the phrase lose its weight, it’s true meaning."

Kim admits that he knew he should have stopped what he was doing before it went so far and got him into trouble, but that he had grown "apart from God." He said he is strengthening his religious convictions while incarcerated and is using his time to further his education by studying different languages: Japanese, Chinese, Greek and Hebrew. He said he would like to compensate the court for some of the expense of prosecuting him.

Kim will serve at least 85 percent of his sentenced before being eligible for release.

In court last week, Kim apologized verbally for his actions as well.