Felon Channeled Illegal Donation to Rep. Kim

An illegal corporate contribution that California Rep. Jay C. Kim has admitted taking from a New Jersey company and stashing in his personal bank account was channeled to him through a convicted felon who is currently under scrutiny in the Senate’s investigation of campaign funding abuses, according to records and interviews.

The $12,000 donation to the Diamond Bar Republican could provide new ammunition for Democrats when the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee resumes its hearings next month. It also is likely to upset Republicans because most of the money was originally intended for President George Bush and New York Sen. Alfonse D’Amato.

The contribution grew out of a Republican fund-raising dinner hosted by D’Amato and attended by Bush on Sept. 21, 1992, at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Kim, destined to become the first Korean American elected to Congress, was showcased at the gala, which was attended by many Asian Americans and organized by Yung Soo Yoo, a Korean-born businessman with a troubled past.

In 1977, Yoo testified before a congressional committee that he worked with the Korean Central Intelligence Agency to discourage witnesses from cooperating with a probe into the Koreagate scandal, which involved covert payments to members of Congress by South Koreans in an effort to influence U.S. policy toward that nation.

In 1984, records show, Yoo was convicted in a federal court in Pennsylvania of making false statements to a bank to collect millions of dollars on the sale of substandard coal to Korea. He was fined $10,000.

Last year, the New York Daily News reported that the 60-year-old Yoo had solicited campaign donations from Korean garment manufacturers in New York after promising to help arrange a curb on factory raids by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

As a result, some Republican officeholders and committees that benefited handsomely from his fund-raising prowess dropped him as a fund-raiser and returned $16,500 of his personal contributions.

They included D’Amato, who was once Yoo’s closest political ally, Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Gov. George Pataki of New York.

And in April, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee subpoenaed the Republican National Committee for all documents and memos relating to Yoo, raising more questions about his activities on behalf of the GOP.

A Democratic source on the committee said Monday, “He’s very much on our radar screen. An investigation is proceeding. And there is a very good possibility that he will be deposed or interviewed by the committee. All relevant connections to campaign finance scandals will be pursued regarding Mr. Yoo.”

Five years ago, at the Waldorf-Astoria Victory ’92 dinner, Yoo was a highly valued fund-raiser for the Republican Party.

When Kim pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court Aug. 11 to violating federal election laws, prosecutors read into the record a sketchy account of a campaign pledge from Nikko Enterprises Inc., an international commodities firm based in Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

Soon after the dinner, Nikko sent a $12,000 corporate check to an unidentified “New York fund-raiser” who telephoned Kim, discussed the fact that it was a corporate check and then forwarded it to Kim in Diamond Bar, according to the government account.

Corporate contributions to candidates for federal office are illegal, as are donations in excess of $2,000 to a candidate.

It is not clear who filled in the payee’s name on the Nikko check, but when it was deposited, it bore the name of Kim’s wife, June. She endorsed the check and deposited it into her husband’s personal bank account. She also pleaded guilty this month to receiving illegal campaign donations.

The unidentified middleman cited by the government in the transaction was Yoo, The Times has learned. Yoo owns Vitac Optical Inc. in Clifton, N.J., an importer of optical lenses.

Yoo was not available for comment. A receptionist at his office said Monday that he was flying to South Korea and was not reachable. Yoo has not been charged with any criminal conduct in the Kim case.

Kim’s office referred questions about his or his wife’s relationship with Yoo to the couple’s criminal defense lawyers. They were not immediately available.

Nikko Senior Vice President David Chang, who attended the dinner and who drafted the check, said in an interview that only $2,000 of the $12,000 was intended for Kim.

Chang, whose company exports wheat and corn to Asian countries, said that at the conclusion of the dinner Yoo came to his table and asked for a contribution. Chang said he agreed to donate $5,000 to the Bush campaign, $5,000 to D’Amato and $2,000 to Kim.

A few days later, he said, Yoo telephoned his office.

“I asked him how should I cut the check,” Chang said. Yoo, he said, instructed him to write a single check for $12,000 and indicate that it was a contribution but to leave the payee’s name blank, and that Yoo would see to it that each candidate got his intended share.

That’s not the way it turned out, Chang said. Two years later, he was visited by FBI agents investigating Kim’s campaign finances. “When the FBI showed me a copy of the canceled check, I saw that it was made out to Kim’s wife,” he said. “Until that time I never heard her name.”

Chang said he never found out what happened to the money after it wound up in Kim’s bank account.

A review of Kim’s annual financial disclosure statements shows that he began listing the money from Chang as a “personal loan” in 1994 after FBI agents paid a visit to Chang’s office. It does not appear on his most recent financial statement, however.

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A check of computerized records compiled by the Federal Election Commission did not turn up any personal donations from the Kims either to the Bush or D’Amato campaigns since 1992.

“You know,” said Chang, “the strange thing is after Mr. Kim was elected to Congress, I called him. I was a little upset because he never sent me a thank you for the $2,000. When I got him on the phone, he denied receiving any contribution from me.

“So I told him what are you talking about. I gave you $2,000. He kept denying it. Finally I got so mad I said you damn . . . and hung up. Since then, I never talked to him.”

Chang said he testified twice before a federal grand jury in Los Angeles that looked into the Kim case. He said that both the FBI and the IRS have scoured his company’s books, but neither he nor his company have been charged in the case.

The FBI probe was launched in 1993 after a series of articles in The Times disclosed that Kim had used hundreds of thousands of dollars from his own corporation, JayKim Engineers, to win the GOP nomination in the newly created and largely Republican 41st Congressional District that straddles Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties.

In the far-reaching investigation that followed, the U.S. affiliates of five South Korean conglomerates pleaded guilty to laundering illegal corporate or foreign contributions into the Kim campaign and were fined a total of $1.6 million.

Earlier this year, Kim’s onetime finance chairman, Seokuk Ma, was convicted by a federal court jury on felony charges of filing false campaign statements to the Federal Election Commission. He is awaiting sentencing.

And on July 31, the Kims entered into a plea agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office. Jay Kim pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors that included the payment from Nikko Enterprises as well as a $50,000 donation from a Taiwanese national and the misuse of his company’s assets to bankroll his 1992 campaign.

June Kim, who helped manage his three successful congressional races, pleaded guilty to two counts of knowingly receiving illegal contributions. Curiously, those crimes occurred in 1994, when the Kims knew they were under investigation.

Under the agreement with prosecutors, the couple face a maximum six months in prison and fines totaling $635,000 when they appear for sentencing on Oct. 23 before U.S. District Judge Richard A. Paez.

Kim’s campaign committee was charged with five felonies and could be fined as much as $2.5 million.

Times staff writer Alan C. Miller contributed to this story from Washington.