All charges have been dismissed against a Montgomery Township woman accused of stealing more than $100,000 from a South Korean national.
Court records show 60-year-old Sung Kim had a preliminary hearing on Nov. 8 in front of Magisterial District Judge Andrea Duffy for felony charges of theft by deception and deceptive business practices, stemming from an investigation by the Montgomery Township Police Department.
Police alleged that in spring 2019, Kim agreed to sell a Nissan Murano for $10,000 to a South Korean woman who was traveling to the United States on an investor visa. The woman also provided $120,000 to purchase Kim’s nail salon in Warrington Township, $150,000 for the investor visa, and $12,000 for her children to attend a private school in Montgomery Township, according to the criminal complaint against Kim.
Upon arriving to the United States, the woman said she stayed with Kim for approximately one month, during which the woman was never provided the vehicle or the business, police said. The woman said she realized she had been defrauded when she went to the nail salon to work and noticed the equipment was in poor condition and the salon had very little in terms of a customer base, according to police.
The woman then left the Kim’s and went to live with people from her church.
Investigators determined that the cost of the investor visa was only $50,000, and the cost of private school was only $6,000, according to the complaint. More than $126,000 had been wired from the woman to an account belonging to Kim, and a review of bank transactions showed more than $23,000 had been withdrawn from the account between April 2019 and June 2019 at various casinos, not including other cash withdraws and checks written against the account, according to the complaint.
The nail salon — identified in documents as CoCo Nails — was later sold in April 2021 for $15,000, meaning the woman suffered a loss of $105,000 on the sale alone, according to charging documents.
During Wednesday’s preliminary hearing, Judge Duffy said prosecutors failed to provide sufficient evidence to support the charges, and subsequently dismissed all counts. Duffy added that a civil case on the matter is pending.
Court documents show Kim — who goes under the alias "Monica Kim” — was represented at the hearing by Nicholas Reifsnyder, Esq.
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