Posted on 04/03/2003 12:15:32 PM PST by formercalifornian
NEW YORK - A Korean-American postal worker admitted in court Thursday that he fired a pistol seven times outside the United Nations last fall, saying he was protesting the plight of North Koreans.
Steve Kim, 57, pleaded guilty to a single charge of making a violent attack on foreign officials. He said he did not intend to hurt anyone when he opened fire with a .357 revolver Oct. 3. Two bullets struck the U.N. building but no one was injured.
According to the terms of a plea agreement, Kim will face up to three years in prison when he is sentenced July 22. He also could be fined up to $60,000 and forced to pay restitution for damage to the building. If he had been convicted at a trial, Kim could have faced up to 10 years in prison.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Biben said government checked into the possibility of terrorism and concluded that Kim acted alone.
Kim, a U.S. citizen born in South Korea, is a postal worker in Des Plaines, Ill. He said he wanted to draw attention to the people of communist North Korea "and their miserable life under the dictatorship of oppression."
He has been held in prison since the shooting.
The FBI had accused him of checking out the building during a trip to New York a month before the attack and of fasting for two days beforehand because he believed it would help him survive surgery if he were shot.
LOL, he wa able to hit the UN 2 out of 7 times. I guess the building kept moving left too fast for him.
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