(IDAHO STATE JOURNAL) — BOISE — A Meridian man will spend at least five years — and could spend as many as 20 — in prison after a judge sentenced him Friday for attempting to rape a woman in 2018 in a Meridian church.
A jury in July convicted Hyoungsuk Kim, 52, of one count of battery to commit a serious felony. The charge stems from the morning of Oct. 3, 2018, when Kim tried to force himself on a woman inside her church. The woman, who will not be identified by the Idaho Press, said in court Friday she’d waited 16 months for Kim to face the consequences of his actions. For her, the attack was even more difficult to live with because it happened inside her church, a place where she normally felt safe.
“I hated myself with an intensity,” she said in court, through tears. “I felt that I had betrayed my family, church members, myself and God for me to trust you to be in the church building on that morning, Oct. 3, 2018. All I wanted was to die, die and die, because I thought God would never allow me to be hurt like this if I wasn’t such a terrible person. That is how I saw myself after you assaulted me. I felt so dirty about myself after you violated me.”
