CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / ORANGE COUNTY
A man who was an executive at Hyundai when he fled the country for his native South Korea after allegedly killing a motorcyclist in a 2005 crash was extradited Friday to Orange County to face felony charges.
South Korean authorities arrested Youn Bum Lee, 41, in Seoul in December on a warrant related to the death of motorcyclist Ryan Dallas Cook in October 2005. The FBI and the U.S. Justice Department had been searching for Lee in South Korea since the arrest warrant was issued in 2007.
Lee faces charges of felony gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs with injury and hit-and-run with injury or death, said Susan Kang Schroeder, a spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney’s office.
He had been drinking with colleagues at a Garden Grove Korean barbecue restaurant and a nearby karaoke bar on the night of the accident, authorities said. Lee got into a black, company-issued Hyundai sport utility vehicle shortly after midnight and crashed it into a concrete barrier on the 55 Freeway in Santa Ana, where it remained with its lights off, police said.
Cook, 23, was riding his motorcycle when he slammed into Lee’s car.
If convicted of all counts, Lee faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in state prison.
-- My-Thuan Tran
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