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Nevada Man Sentenced To 15 Additional Years In Child Abduction And Rape Case
The defendant pleaded for leniency in the case that involved two teenage girls abducted and held at gunpoint six years ago in North Las Vegas.
A Nevada man will spend at least 15 additional years in federal prison in a complex plea agreement after being arrested and charged with more than 80 state and federal kidnapping, sexual assault, child pornography and other charges.
Jimmy Carter Kim, 32, was arrested on Dec. 4, 2015, the day after a 14-year-old Arizona girl — who had been reported as a runaway in Bullhead City on Nov. 3, 2015, according to ABC affiliate KNXV in Phoenix — called 911 from a convenience store in Las Vegas and reported that she had just escaped from a house where she'd been held for a month and repeatedly raped after being kidnapped.
According to the Justice Department from Tuesday, the two met over social media and, between Nov. 2 and Nov. 3, 2015, met in Bullhead City. That's where he abducted her, drove her to his father's house in North Las Vegas and locked her in his bedroom. There, authorities say, he repeatedly sexually assaulted her, which he filmed on his iPhone.
The girl escaped by picking the lock of the bedroom with a pair of scissors, according to KNXV.
After police arrested Kim and obtained a search warrant for the home, they discovered evidence that he may have held other minors there, according to KNXV; Kim was then connected to a 15-year-old in Reno who had told officers at a shelter for runaways that she had been kidnapped by a man she met on the internet and raped repeatedly at a North Las Vegas. house, according to NBC affiliate KRNV in Reno.
Eventually, Kim was hit with 83 different state charges in the two cases, including kidnapping, child sexual assault, lewdness and using a minor in pornography, among others. A March 2016 deal was made for Kim to plead to four charges of child sexual assault in exchange for prosecutors dropping the other charges, as outlined by NBC affiliate KSNV. However, that deal fell apart within a matter of weeks. After Kim pleaded not guilty, prosecutors said they'd identified at least two other victims.
Kim was then deemed temporarily incompetent to assist in his defense. At one point in 2017, he appeared in court for a competency hearing speaking with a poor imitation of a British accent and telling the judge, "A young gentleman, like me, young, charismatic and fetching in these county blues; why would I be subjected to a competency hearing?" according to KSNV.
He was remanded to a mental health facility for further evaluation at that time.
In 2018, the Justice Department arrested Kim and charged him with one federal count of kidnapping, one federal count of sexual exploitation of children and one federal count of possession of child pornography in the same case, according to their press release.
In April, Kim pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted sexual assault of a minor, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. A total of four victims were named in court documents. He was sentenced in that case on June 1, at which point one of his victims, who was 15 years old at the time of her assault, testified.
The victim, who was not named in court, testified that she'd since had to have hip surgery because of damage from his repeated rapes. She'd also spent three of the last six years in long-term mental health facilities and all six in therapy. She still has breakdowns, she told the judge, and worries that she won't be a good parent to her two-year-old son because of how damaged she feels as a result of Kim's crimes.
Kim also pleaded guilty in federal court around that time to one count of sexual exploitation of children and was sentenced to 16 years and 4 months of federal time on Tuesday as part of an overall plea agreement, according to the Justice Department. He will also be subject to 36 years of supervised release when the sentence is completed.
U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware expressed reservations about the plea deal that allowed Kim to serve his federal and state time concurrently, according to the AP, but expressed satisfaction that Kim would be in custody until 2036.
Kim used his time before the judge to blame his actions on the death of his mother, his emotional state at the time, and his drug use. He also complained that he was subjected to violence from other inmates as a result of his crimes.
