Bond Denied for Karate Teacher
Suspect Facing Extradition to Florida to Face Similar Charge
POSTED: 1:04 pm EDT June 22, 2005
UPDATED: 2:32 pm EDT June 22, 2005
MARIETTA – A Cobb County judge on Wednesday denied bond for a martial arts teacher accused of molesting two students in his class, citing his decision to flee Florida seven years ago on similar charges.
The decision means Hyuk Song, 28, will remain at the Cobb County Jail, where he is facing several charges in connection with the alleged molestation of two Cobb girls.
The magistrate judge said Song would likely leave the country if bond was granted in the case.
Song, the primary instructor at W.T.K.D. Song Martial Arts Studio in Marietta who is a fifth-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, was taken into custody in April after police received a complaint that he had allegedly molested a girl in his summer camp karate class.
The 12-year-old girl was 9 years old at the time she told police she had been molested. A second girl who attended the martial arts studio came forward and accused the man of molesting her, too, police said.
The details of that complaint were not clear.
Cobb detective David Schweizer testified during the hearing that the man confessed to molesting the first girl.
“He (said) he sat her in his lap and placed his hand down her pants,” the officer said, who added that the suspect did not elaborate after he was confronted with the allegations by the second girl.
An attorney for Song said the accusations are shaky.
“There were some problems going on with these individuals and school and their behavior,” attorney Angeleyn Gates said after the hearing. “With one of these girls in particular, she was having some personal problems.”
The man, whose Cobb case will now be bound over to Superior Court for grand jury consideration, is expected to appear at an extradition hearing sometime next month in connection with the Florida case.
Investigators said he is wanted in Volusia County, Fla., on charges that he sexually assaulted an 8-year-old girl enrolled in his martial arts class there in 1997.
He was set to go on trial in that case before he left the state and resettled in metro Atlanta. Officials said his family helped him open the martial arts studio in Cobb.
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/4639255/detail.html?rss=atl&psp=news
If this happened to my kid, we would find out real quick how tough TKD black belts are.