When Fairfax County residents go to sleep at night, they have an expectation of being safe in their beds — without intruders breaking in and assaulting them. Therefore, when someone violates their safety and privacy, there's a price to pay.
Dong Soo Kim, 37, of 12162 Penderview Lane in Fair Oaks learned that lesson the hard way, Friday, when a Fairfax County Circuit Court judge sentenced him to six years in prison. He was convicted of burglary with intent to commit rape and object sexual penetration.
He lived in the Penderbrook community — the same neighborhood in which he committed his crimes. And he broke into the same home twice. The first incident occurred July 31, around 3:30 a.m., in the 12100 block of Greenway Court. The male homeowner and his 33-year-old 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 through an unlocked, sliding-glass door — from which they obtained several latent fingerprints for analysis. Then on Aug. 20, around 12:45 a.m., the stranger returned and a similar scenario occurred.
But this time, the woman was awakened by a hand on her leg. At first, she thought it was her boyfriend, so she wasn't alarmed. But as it progressed upward on her body, something about it felt different to her. She then turned and, to her horror, discovered the hand wasn't her boyfriend's.
She saw someone crawl out of the room and, although her boyfriend pursued the intruder, he fled into the night. Once again, he'd gotten inside the home via the same door, and the fingerprints on it 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.
His later explanation was that he'd drunk heavily, Aug. 20, and didn't remember everything that happened. He did recall the home and its occupants, though, and believed he might have touched someone. In Circuit Court, April 22, through a Korean-language interpreter, Kim entered an Alford plea of guilt — not admitting culpability, but acknowledging the existence of enough evidence to convict him.
His guilty plea was to the Aug. 20 charges — a sexual penetration and burglary with intent to commit rape. In exchange, the Commonwealth agreed to drop the other two charges. He returned Friday, May 16, for sentencing by Judge Leslie Alden.
On each charge, she sentenced Kim to 20 years in prison, suspending 14 years. She then ran the sentences concurrently, so that he has six years total to serve behind bars. She also placed him on five years probation upon his release from prison.