Twins’ Mother Urges Leniency in Murder Plot

The mother of a 23-year-old convicted of conspiring to murder her twin sister has broken her long silence with a letter to the judge begging for leniency.

In the letter sent to Superior Court Judge Eileen C. Moore this week, Boo I. Kim said she bears responsibility for her daughter’s actions because she abandoned the sisters at a young age, leaving them to grow up with relatives. “I believe that Gina [Jeen Han] would not have committed such a crime had I done my duty in raising her as a responsible young adult,” Kim wrote. “Had I been able to raise my two girls in a more stable family environment, things would not have gone this far out of control.”

Han, Archie Bryant, 17, and John Sayarath, 16, all of San Diego, were convicted in November on several charges, the most serious being two counts each of conspiracy to commit murder. The crime involved a botched attack on Sunny Han and her roommate, Helen Kim, at their Irvine apartment.

Sentencing for the three is scheduled for Jan. 30, and each faces the possibility of 25 years to life in prison.

Kim’s letter was sent along with a letter from Koo Oh, president of the Korean American Federation of Orange County, in support of Jeen Han.

“Most Korean Americans here believe that the sentence Gina could get is too stiff,” he said Tuesday. “We feel she didn’t have the intention to kill her sister, maybe just give her a scare. What she did was wrong and she should get punished, but if she gets life in prison, her sister Sunny and her mother get hurt too.”

Oh said the local Korean American community, which numbers about 150,000, supports Jeen Han, who he said has been demonized by the media as the “evil twin.”

“The media did not focus on the facts of the case but played to the bizarre aspects of the case for audience and ratings,” Oh wrote in his letter. The community “also believes that the prosecutors were overzealous in their prosecution of the case as a result of the media involvement.”

Oh pointed out that even Sunny Han, who served as the prosecution’s chief witness, has stated that she does not believe her sister intended to kill her.

The twins’ mother also accused the media of being “more interested in unfolding Gina’s troubles to the public instead of having any compassion for the crime committed by a teenage girl.” Kim, who lives in the San Fernando Valley, did not testify during the four-week trial and was present only briefly. Oh said her letter indicated she believes that she should be the one going to jail, not her daughter.

Oh, who has not been in contact with the mother, said the organization got her letter from a prison ministries pastor who asked for the group’s help. The group offered to translate it into English and send it along with its own plea for leniency.

The story of the twins, co-valedictorians in high school, attracted international media coverage. During the trial, their close and sometimes stormy relationship and their difficult childhood in Korea and the United States was detailed.

Prosecutors said Jeen Han apparently plotted to murder her sister after Sunny had gotten her arrested for using her credit card and stealing her car.

The trial itself took a turn when Sunny Han took an overdose of sleeping pills and collapsed in the courtroom.