Local News in Brief : 40 Years to Life for Koreatown Slayings
A 30-year-old illegal alien from South Korea was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years to life in prison for the October, 1985, gangland-style shootings in a Koreatown restaurant that left one man dead and two injured.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Bernard J. Kamins called the shootings “a very dastardly deed” and said the viciousness and coldblooded nature of the crime “knocked my socks off.”
Defense attorney Paul J. Fitzgerald of Los Angeles had urged leniency, saying his client, Chung Ki Yu, is “a foreigner unfamiliar with our customs and our laws.”
The shootings were a result of an unsuccessful attempt to shake down the intended target of the shootings, Sung Yi, who owned a Hollywood dance club at the time, Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Atty. John C. Spence III said.
Yu, who worked at Yi’s Club Napoleon as a parking attendant, was convicted by a jury in May of first-degree murder in the death of Kun Soo Lim, 28. Lim was sitting in a booth at the Dong Kyung An Restaurant with Yi and five others when Yu and at least one accomplice entered the restaurant at 3077 W. 8th St. and opened fire.
Yi, 36, ducked under the table but was struck by a shotgun blast, suffering permanent injuries. A third man in the booth, Casey Paik, 51, was also wounded.
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