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Friday, February 7, 2025

Korean-American man sentenced to 16 years for child exploitation and pornography production

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A Korean-American man who sexually exploited minors has been sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Jung Woo Choi, 42, of Centreville, Virginia, was sentenced in federal court to 16 years in prison and 20 years of supervised release for using social media to solicit minors for sexual purposes and forcing them to create pornographic images, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota said in a recent press release.

Between November 2023 and February 2024, Choi used the pseudonym “Jason Lee” to engage in sexual conversations with a 13- to 14-year-old girl on Instagram and other social media apps, according to the court filing.

 

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While using the pseudonym, Choi approached the minor victim in online conversations and knowingly enticed or coerced her into sending sexually explicit photos and videos to Instagram and other social media platforms.

Choi also engaged in online grooming, a type of taming behavior, such as sending gifts through Amazon or the mail to win the victim’s favor.

On February 17, 2024, Choi flew from Virginia to Minnesota to meet with the minor victim in person.

The family of the minor victim and law enforcement intervened, and the meeting was unsuccessful, and Choi returned to Virginia, where he resides.

Law enforcement subsequently arrested Choi and Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Murphy charged him.

On October 2, 2024, Choi pleaded guilty to one count of producing child pornography. On October 10, Judge Donovan Frank of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota sentenced Choi to prison.

The case was handled by the Anoka County Sheriff’s Department and the Postal Inspection Service.

The criminal investigation is being conducted by federal prosecutors and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section(CEOS) through Project Safe Childhood, an initiative launched by the U.S. Department of Justice in May 2006 to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

CEOS works with federal and state law enforcement to apprehend suspected child sex traffickers using the Internet. For more information on these projects, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

BY HYOUNGJAE KIM [kim.ian@koreadaily.com]