Upon him winning the job as Accounting Manager at Irvine's Glovis America, Inc. in 2009, a man known in U.S. Department of Justice records as “P.L.” launched a scheme to steal from the Hyundai-tied company with an accomplice, John Wootae Kim.
Kim signed a guilty plea with Assistant United States Attorney Jeannie M. Joseph this week that conceded the two-year scam resulted in more than $2.6 million in company losses, crimes that expose the defendant to a maximum punishment of 60 years in prison.
According to the plea, Kim used LegalZoom.com to create a fake company with a similar name to the victim, opened a JP Morgan Chase account and received a commission for funds P.L. diverted.
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Joseph believes P.L. used the loot to pay for auto insurance, personal loans, credit card bills, mortgage payments and gambling excursions.
Kim acknowledges he used his portion to pay restaurant, bar, grocery store and gas station bills as well as buy golf clubs.
Once the wire fraud plot was uncovered in 2011, Kim–born in 1970–admits he tried to close the fake account and withdraw remaining funds to coverup the crimes.
His admissions mean he can't ever vote or join other, more accomplished thieves by holding public office.
A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled, but you have to expect the IRS Criminal Division is already preparing a special income tax bill for Kim.
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.