Violent Gang Rapist Put Away for Good

A Koreatown gang leader who fled the country after his 1999 conviction for raping five women is expected to spend the rest of his life in state prison starting today.

Hyun Gu “Eddie” Kang, 32, was extradited Monday from South Korea to Los Angeles. He had been on the run for more than a year before being arrested overseas last year on an unrelated drug charge.

A Superior Court judge in Los Angeles is scheduled to order Kang to serve 271 years to life in prison.

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks called the extradition historic and praised the cooperation among local and international authorities in capturing a “very serious criminal.” Kang was extradited under a treaty established between South Korea and the United States in 1999.

Kang and six gang members were indicted by a Los Angeles County grand jury on 43 criminal counts in August 1997 after police and prosecutors conducted a yearlong investigation into a series of rapes.

All seven men were tried and convicted on charges including conspiracy, forcible gang rape and assault with a firearm. Each was sentenced to life in prison, which police said effectively wiped out the gang.

Shortly after Kang’s conviction in February 1999, however, his businessman father posted $2.5-million bail to free him pending sentencing. Within days, Kang was gone. A judge sentenced him, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

But in October 2000, Kang was arrested on the drug charge. South Korean law enforcement authorities contacted federal officials, and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office started the extradition process.

“This case was so serious everyone wanted him brought back,” said Barbara Moore, chief of the extradition unit for the district attorney’s office.

Kang’s arrival was greeted with broad smiles from LAPD Det. Maureen Correa and prosecutor Michael Carter, who have worked the case since September 1996. That was when Correa first learned of an isolated, brutal rape reported in the Rampart Division.

At the time, investigators had little to go on. But three weeks after the first assault, a second, very similar rape was reported. Others followed.

It took investigators nearly two years, but slowly the pieces fit into place. The assailants robbed men and stole their identification and credit cards. Then they rented hotel rooms and called escort services. When a woman walked into the room, she was beaten, sexually assaulted and robbed by several men.

“Their lives were threatened,” Correa said. “Many . . . were even too terrified to report the crimes.”

To crack the case, Correa and other investigators secured the cooperation of targeted escort services. As part of their investigation they went to one hotel room where calls for an escort had been made and found Kang there.