Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established Tacoma, WA, USA · 2007

Dong Wan Park: church offices and false ordinations used in a religious-worker visa scheme

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Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

pastor of Hope Korean Church, church official able to sponsor purported religious workers

Organization

Hope Korean Church in Tacoma

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The federal record says Park advertised visas through his church, charged applicants as much as $30,000, submitted false seminary transcripts and ordination certificates, and represented that the applicants would be paid associate pastors although they had no religious training and were never employed there. He later tried to recast their payments as donations and used church authority to facilitate a property sale. The religious institution, offices and credentials were the mechanism of the fraud.

Pastoral or clerical authority
Institutional obedience or isolation
Other spiritual authority or belief

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2007-08-09 · bench-trial convictions, later guilty pleas and sentence

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. After a June 2006 bench trial found Park guilty of conspiracy, three visa-fraud counts and obstruction, and after he later pleaded guilty to failure to appear and transportation of stolen property, the court sentenced him to fifty-five months in prison, three years of supervised release, $290,000 restitution and a $250,000 fine.

Documented coercion mechanisms

false offers of church employment
fabricated seminary transcripts
fabricated ordination certificates
payments relabeled as church donations
witness tampering
unauthorized sale of church property

Cited record

Sources

official prosecutor release criminal disposition and nexus U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington, 'Tacoma Pastor Sentenced to Prison for Conspiracy, Visa Fraud and Obstruction of Justice' (Aug. 10, 2007).: The official sentencing release records the trial convictions, later guilty pleas, sentence, false religious-worker positions, fabricated seminary and ordination documents, payment amounts, witness tampering and church-property transaction.
official prosecutor release verdict and scheme corroboration U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington, 'South Korea Deports Pastor Who Fled U.S. to Escape Sentencing on Visa Fraud Charges' (Nov. 1, 2006).: The official pre-sentencing release corroborates the bench-trial verdict, advertising and payment scheme, false church employment, fabricated religious credentials, obstruction and flight posture.
contemporaneous local court reporting sentencing corroboration Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 'Pastor sentenced for fake visa applications' (Aug. 10, 2007).: Contemporaneous local court reporting corroborates the fifty-five-month sentence, religious-worker visa fraud, church sale, restitution and fine.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/waw/press/2007/aug/park.html Corpus classification: official-prosecutor-release; evidentiary role: criminal-disposition-and-nexus. SHA-256 1122ee1bb88780ef3a9c1faf38ffa5d61be3831e9701503bdf67c25174222eff
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/waw/press/2006/nov/park.html Corpus classification: official-prosecutor-release; evidentiary role: verdict-and-scheme-corroboration. SHA-256 53d833bc3256d20df527f3ac6a0a87b43f48216fe6bf8cb58ab3a27698b77f26
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Pastor-sentenced-for-fake-visa-applications-1246364.php Corpus classification: contemporaneous-local-court-reporting; evidentiary role: sentencing-corroboration. SHA-256 69b74351eb0b0cc3566cb8ca062c56b559b4ac342eb46f263a0c53f1f0838f62
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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