Woman Testifies Ex-Boyfriend Kidnaped, Raped, Tortured Her for 3 Days : Crime: The 23-year-old Korean testifies she was viciously beaten; defense calls it a domestic fight. Supermarket patrons held the man for police.

In a barely audible voice and with sometimes gruesome detail, a 23-year-old woman testified Wednesday to being kidnaped, raped and tortured for three days in April by her onetime boyfriend.

Municipal Judge Robert Swasey is expected to decide today whether to hold the suspect, 19-year-old Michael Lim of Woodland Hills, over for trial. He is being charged with three counts of rape and one count each of kidnaping for the purpose of sexual conduct, torture and spousal abuse.

The victim, speaking through an interpreter at the preliminary hearing, described a 1 1/2-year relationship that began in Seoul, South Korea, and ended last month in an apparent jealous rage. Her testimony did not make clear why Lim was jealous.

Defense attorney Harland Braun said that the charges filed against Lim were more serious than his actions merited, and that prosecutors were not taking into account cultural differences. Lim is an American citizen but was raised in South Korea. The woman is Korean.

“What you have is a boyfriend/girlfriend fight,” Braun said. “The penalty is so disproportionate to what their culture would do. In Korea, they would probably settle this between the families.”

Police and prosecutors say the crime was unusually heinous.

Photos of the victim taken in the hospital show severe trauma, prosecutors said, with most of the skin missing from her buttocks and the backs of her thighs, as well as injuries to her feet, hands, face and head.

Other photos show two bent metal rods that police say were straight until Lim started beating the woman with them.

Responding to a question by Deputy Dist. Atty. Carole Chizever, the victim said, “The pipe became bent, so he came out with another pipe.” Then she began crying after testifying without tears for more than two hours.

According to the suspect’s father, Robert Lim, who flew to Los Angeles after receiving a call from his jailed son, the suspect and the victim began dating in Korea. Michael, he said, came to the United States about five months ago and was attending Pierce College.

The victim said she arrived March 10 to go to school also, and Lim picked her up at the airport. One week later, she said, she received her first beating at the hands of the tall, handsome Lim after he didn’t believe her story detailing what she did with girlfriends on a Friday night.

A week after that, she testified, Lim took her to his apartment, closed the windows and blinds and began beating her.

“After he hit me, he asked me to do the dishes,” she said, and when she failed to finish washing them in a set 10-minute time limit, he beat her again.

The victim, with most of her head covered by a black scarf, said Lim then cut off her hair with a paring knife and held the knife to her throat.

Lim was arrested April 3, the last day of the alleged three-day incident, after being held by patrons of a Vons supermarket who said they saw him beating the woman at the store.

The preliminary hearing is set to resume today at 9 a.m.