Trial opens in Angelil extortion case

Molly Ball

Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2004 | 11:14 a.m.

Banned from the courtroom as his wife went on trial for extortion for allegedly threatening the husband of Celine Dion, Ae Ho Kwon, wearing a clerical collar and a dour expression, eyed the jury as they marched in and out.

"My wife has (made a) mistake, I know, but there was reason," said the 52-year-old Kwon, who is pastor of a Korean Presbyterian church in Los Angeles. "I believe God is working for her and me in my life."

Kwon wouldn't say what he meant by "mistake" -- whether he was referring to the allegation that she was raped by Rene Angelil, the hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt she racked up at Las Vegas casinos, the accusation that the couple committed extortion when they threatened to go public, or something else entirely.

But he said he was praying to God for justice.

The complicated trial of 49-year-old Yun Kyeong Sung, Kwon's wife, began Tuesday with Chief Deputy District Attorney L.J. O'Neale telling the jurors they would hear a story of "greed and extortion."

Jurors also heard an audiotape in which the couple's own lawyers referred to them as "wacko" and described them as hellbent on punishing Angelil.

In debt to the tune of $1 million, Sung and Kwon allegedly hatched a money-making scheme: They threatened to "ruin Rene's career" and "forever be a thorn in (his) side" if he didn't hand over as much as $20 million, O'Neale said.

Lawyers for Sung and Kwon allegedly told Angelil's lawyers the couple would appear on Larry King's CNN television show with a red knee-length jacket they claimed was stained with Angelil's semen -- unless they were paid off, O'Neale said.

It wouldn't be the first time Angelil had paid the two what his own lawyer called "hush money." In 2000, Angelil gave them $2 million in exchange for confidentiality.

Sung had charged that in March of 2000, the husband and manager of French-Canadian diva Dion followed Sung through the Imperial Palace hotel, fondled her, exposed himself to her, asked her to perform a sexual act and then, when she refused, threw a water bottle across the room and left.

The lawyers in the case must tiptoe around the matter of whether or not Angelil actually sexually assaulted Sung.

District Judge Jackie Glass previously ruled that the truth of the rape allegation isn't relevant to the extortion charges, so the attorneys must not base their case for or against extortion on the idea that the rape did or didn't occur.

O'Neale said that it couldn't be assumed that the assault happened just because the couple was paid a hefty sum to keep quiet. When accusations of wrongdoing are leveled at celebrities, he said, "whether the allegations are true or false, they are always damaging."

Whether a star pays off an accuser has to do with the potential damage the accusation could do to the star's reputation and earning potential, he said.

The $2 million payment was conditioned on Sung and Kwon's silence as well as their waiving of any future claims and their handing to Angelil's lawyers any physical evidence they possessed.

According to the agreement they signed in June 2000, they would have to return the $2 million if they violated these conditions.

But the silence was threatened when, in March 2002, new lawyers for the pair contacted Angelil's attorneys asking for more money, O'Neale said.

At about the same time, he said, Sung was being prosecuted for unpaid casino markers of nearly $1 million at Harrah's and Mandalay Bay.

It was also the same time that Sung's time limit to file a rape complaint with the police -- two years -- was about to expire. She filed the complaint within days of her lawyers filing a civil lawsuit.

But the avenues were meant to be merely routes to more money, not means to justice, O'Neale said.

"It was never meant to be a case to win," he told the jury. "It was meant to be a sham, a facade, a mechanism, an excuse to extort additional money from Rene Angelil."

Sung and Kwon's lawyers repeatedly told Angelil's attorney, Martin Singer, that even if they lost in court, the damage would be done when the pair went to the media with the semen-stained jacket and green underwear they claimed was Angelil's, according to O'Neale.

Singer, a Los Angeles lawyer who has represented stars from Bruce Willis to Arnold Schwarzenegger, testified that he routinely fends off potentially damaging allegations against his clients.

"It is not going to matter whether or not a statement's true or false when the allegations are originally made, because that's when the headlines are cut," he said. By the time the truth comes out months or years later, the harm has already been done, he added.

Singer said Angelil paid the original $2 million for three reasons -- first and most importantly, because Dion had been trying for years to get pregnant and was undergoing fertility treatment.

Second, Angelil had just undergone cancer treatment and was "still not 100 percent healthy." And third, he was concerned about his reputation, Singer said.

"It is not uncommon for people to pay money referred to as hush money," he said.

In a taped 2002 phone conversation, Joseph Hong, one of Sung's lawyers, can be heard telling Singer that even though Sung had promised to turn over all the physical evidence, she kept the red garment and green underwear as a "safe harbor for herself."

"We've got to get (a deal) done before she turns them over to the detectives, because once she turns them over to the detectives, it's out of our hands," Hong says. "We can't say, you know what, never mind."

The payment, Hong says, is "something I think your client should do, really." He continues, "These people (Sung and Kwon) are wacko. They're out of their minds. If I withdraw, their only option will be to go out there and basically ruin Rene's career."

But Singer tells Hong he doesn't believe the garment, originally described as a red dress, is real because "Rene said she wasn't wearing a dress that night."

Hong explains that the garment is more like a jacket than a dress.

Later, Singer also questions the other item, saying, "I asked Rene and Rene said he doesn't have any green underwear."

When the trial continues today, the jury is set to see and hear footage of a January 2003 meeting, surreptitiously captured on video and audiotape, in which Sung and Kwon, their lawyers, Singer, a Korean interpreter and a police detective masquerading as Angelil's business manager discussed the potential settlement.

Several detectives were listening in from another room. Sung and Kwon were taken into custody as they walked out of the meeting.

Sung and Kwon wanted to be tried separately, but Glass, the judge, denied their request. On Tuesday, Glass banned Kwon from the courtroom when a corrections officer reported he had tried to illegally speak to his wife.

"In light of his repeated incidents in the past and his outburst, I will not allow him in," Glass said. At a hearing earlier this month, Kwon shouted at the prosecutor in Korean and English as his wife sobbed.

Sung's lawyer, Robert Langford, and Kwon's lawyer, Lisa Rasmussen, said the pastor wasn't trying to speak to Sung -- he was either mouthing a silent prayer or putting a piece of chocolate in his mouth.