SEATTLE — A South Korean man who was deported after serving time for killing his brother in 1984 was charged with weapons violations after authorities said he used the dead man’s identity to buy guns.
Junne Kyoo Koh was convicted and sentenced in 1985 in the shooting death of Sang Kyoo Koh, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Seattle. He was deported in 1992 after he completed his sentence.
Last June, he called Bellevue police and reported that his family had been kidnapped, his brother’s car was missing, and he could no longer access his parents’ online bank account. He said he feared someone was trying to take his family’s home and their Social Security income.
Police said they found several handguns at the home and became concerned about his mental health and for the safety of people around him. Koh agreed to turn the firearms over to law enforcement.
Koh later sent an email to a Bellevue detective saying he had received a call from members of his family who were in California but would not tell him where.
During the missing persons’ investigation, police discovered the 1985 murder case and determined that Junne Koh had assumed his brother’s identity to return to the U.S., the complaint said.
In an email, Koh told a detective that he was working in the North Dakota oil field and “since I am not allowed to have guns, you can seize my pistols. Also I am not allowed to live in the United States. I therefore use many identities including Sam,” the complaint says.
Koh was arrested in August in Los Angeles, where detectives believe he went to search for his family. California authorities found a resident alien card, two Washington state identification cards, a Social Security card and a Korean passport all in the name of Sang Koh.
Junne Koh was extradited to Washington state. He told Bellevue police that he re-entered the U.S. near Lynden, Washington in 1993 and assumed his dead brother’s identity, the complaint said.
Koh was charged with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, having a gun while in the U.S. illegally, and illegal re-entry after being deported. Vanessa Pai-Thompson , his federal public defender, did not return a message seeking comment
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