Hollywood actor and mixed-martial arts fighter Joseph Hyungmin Son, who played Dr. Evil's henchman Random
Task in the 1997 comedy Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, has been sentenced to life in prison for torturing a Huntington Beach woman on Christmas Eve 1990. Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno's sentence does allow the 40-year-old to apply for parole.
A statement from his victim, which mentions she has forever been robbed of the Christmas holiday, follows after the jump . . .
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According to the Orange County District Attorney's office, whose Deputy District Attorney Eric Scarbrough of the Sexual Assault Unit prosecuted this case:
At the sentencing today, the victim gave an impact statement to the
court, “The post traumatic stress disorder is with me daily as I have
triggers that set me off. I feel debilitating fear come over me and am
convinced a hand is coming from behind again. My emotional scars are
intense. My twenties were stripped from my life as I relearned how to
walk, see, hear and cope with the outside world again. Joseph Son not
only cost me my job at my salon but also my college savings… not to
mention the impact it's made on celebrating Christmas year after year.”
The then 20-year-old was snatched off a Surf City street while walking her dog on Christmas Eve 1990 by Son and Santiago Gaitan, 40, who pleaded guilty in January and was sentenced to 17 years and
four months in state prison. She went on to be pistol-whipped, repeatedly raped, threatened with a loaded
gun and ultimately tossed–bruised, battered and naked except for a
jacket wrapped around her head–out of car in Compton.
Her captors told her they were releasing her as a Christmas present.
After violating his parole for felony vandalism
in 2008, Son's DNA was extracted and sent to the state database, which produced a match from the 1990 rape of the Huntington Beach woman. Various other charges, including rape and kidnapping, could not be filed against Son because the statute of limitations had by then expired.
In Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Son's character Random Task was a spoof of the baddie “Odd Job” in the James Bond film Goldfinger. Son fought in professional mixed-martial arts bouts as Joe Son.
Previous coverage:
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.