While a 33-year-old woman slept peacefully beside her boyfriend, last summer, in his Fair Oaks home, an intruder broke in and sexually assaulted her. Tuesday morning in Fairfax County Circuit Court, the man charged with these crimes pleaded guilty.
He is Dong Soo Kim, 37, of 12162 Penderview Lane in the Penderbrook community — the same neighborhood where the offenses took place. Slated to have a jury trial, he instead entered an Alford plea — not admitting guilt, but acknowledging that enough evidence exists to convict him.
Actually, there were two break-ins at the same apartment, explained Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Jay Nanavati to Judge Leslie Alden. The first occurred July 31, around 3:30 a.m., in the 12100 block of Greenway Court. The male homeowner and his girlfriend were sleeping when he awoke to see an unknown man in his bedroom.
He was able to describe the intruder, and police learned that entry was made via an unlocked, sliding-glass door — from which they obtained several latent fingerprints for analysis. Then on Aug. 20, around 12:45 a.m., the same thing happened again.
But this time, said Nanavati, "The woman awoke to find a hand on her leg. She initially thought it was her boyfriend, so [she wasn't alarmed]. But when she turned she realized it wasn't [her boyfriend]."
"She saw a dark figure crawl out of the room," continued Nanavati. "Her boyfriend chased the man, but he got away." Again, entry was through the same door and, said the prosecutor, the fingerprints matched those found on July 31.
Since Kim had a prior arrest record for peeping tom and property-destruction charges, police were able to trace the fingerprints to him. They charged him with burglary, two counts of object sexual penetration, and burglary with intent to commit rape. The sexual offenses are each punishable by as much as life in prison.
"He said he'd drunk heavily on Aug. 20 and didn't remember everything that happened," said Nanavati. "He said he remembered the home and the people there and may have touched someone."
Tuesday, through a Korean-language interpreter, Kim pleaded guilty to the Aug. 20 charges — a sexual penetration and burglary with intent to commit rape. In exchange, the Commonwealth has agreed to drop the other two charges. It's also agreed to a particular sentence, but details were not yet disclosed.
Alden then ordered Kim — who's being held in jail — to return to court May 16. At that time, she'll review the sentencing guidelines for his case and decide whether to accept his plea and sentence him.