Cerritos man guilty of manslaughter for shooting childhood friend, jury finds

A man who shot his friend of more than three decades in the back of his head in an industrial area of east Anaheim is guilty of voluntary manslaughter, not murder, an Orange County jury found Thursday.

Beong Kwun Cho, 56, admitted to police that he shot his friend, Yeon Woo Lee, and left him abandoned on the side of a road near a basin along Miraloma Avenue. But Cho insisted it was at the request of Lee, who wanted to die but didn’t want to burden his family with the social stigma and trauma associated with suicide.

Lee, who was visiting from South Korea, was found prone by his rental car with muddy footprints on his back, next to a flat tire in January, 2011.

Cho initially lied but soon began recounting to an Anaheim homicide detective a tortuous tale that he said ended with Lee asking his best friend to shoot him in the head. Lee orchestrated the plot, buying a gun, taking Cho to a shooting range and purchasing props — over-sized shoes and black knit gloves — to make his death look like a robbery gone wrong, Cho said.

During the two-week trial in downtown Santa Ana, Cho testified in his own defense and said he had no intention of going along with Lee’s plan until the moment he fired the shot. He claimed Lee said upsetting things about his wife and daughter.

In their verdict Thursday, jurors accepted Cho’s account that he only pulled the trigger in the “heat of passion” of the moment. Prosecutors had contended Cho should be found guilty of first-degree murder, saying it was clear Cho arrived at the scene that night with the intention of killing his friend.

Cho’s attorney had argued to jurors Wednesday that Cho was only guilty of voluntary manslaughter because it was Lee who had done all the planning leading up to his death.

“This isn’t Mr. Cho’s plan to kill Mr. Lee, it’s Mr. Lee’s plan,” deputy public defender Robert Kohler said. “The law recognizes that people are people. We are flawed, and people can be overcome by emotion.”

Kohler had told jurors that Korean cultural context was important for them to understand the case. He called to the stand a professor who testified that in Korea, suicide stigmatizes one’s entire family.

“This case is about shame, shame in Korean culture,” Kohler said. “In this case, there’s shame for every single person involved.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Scott Simmons said Cho should be found guilty of first-degree murder no matter whether Lee had asked him to kill him. Simmons argued that Cho’s claim that he didn’t mean to kill Lee until the very last minute was a lie.

“That’s baloney. You don’t put on size 13 shoes, wear black gloves … you don’t engage in that kind of activity if you don’t intend to kill.”

Cho is scheduled to be sentenced Sept 23. He faces up to 21 years in prison.

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