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Feds: South Korean Child Rapist From River Edge Lied In Naturalization Bid

Federal agents on Thursday arrested a South Korean national from River Edge who they said didn’t admit having sex with a child when he applied for naturalization.

Martin Luther King U.S. District Courthouse in Newark

Martin Luther King U.S. District Courthouse in Newark

Photo Credit: COURTESY: justice.gov

Kyung Lim Park, a/k/a “Howard Kyung Lim Park,” 65, admitted in Superior Court in Hackensack in March 2016 that he had sex with the child at least three times.

Park, who pleaded guilty to child endangerment and sexual conduct by a non-caretaker, was later sentenced to five years probation, with lifetime community service and the requirement that he register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law.

Park had lawfully entered the U.S. from South Korea in March 1998, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.

On Oct. 13, 2011, he completed a naturalization application to obtain U.S. citizenship, which included a question asking whether he’d ever committed a crime, the U.S. attorney said.

Park “did not disclose that he had engaged in sexual intercourse with a child between December 2002 and April 2003,” Carpenito said.

As a result, he was arrested and charged with “knowingly procuring his own naturalization contrary to law by providing false information and concealing material facts.”

A federal judge in Newark allowed Park’s release Thursday afternoon on $150,000 bond.

Carpenito credited special agents of Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations for making the case, handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Moscato, the chief of his National Security Unit in Newark.

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