A man who violently extorted money from a Koreatown karaoke bar owner and controlled the neighborhood’s hired women who entertain guests was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Friday.
Daekun Cho, 39, of Woodland Hills, was found guilty of extortion and carjacking in late March. During five day testdescribed to prosecutors how he charged Koreatown karaoke bar owners protection fees and had control doumi — hired party girls driven around neighborhood bars — and their drivers with threats of violence since 2018.
“For years, this defendant terrorized the merchants of Koreatown with his violent, disruptive schemes and intimidated victims into silence,” Martin Estrada, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement. “Extortionists who seek to make money through violence are on notice that we will use federal tools to hold them accountable and the consequences will be severe.”
Prosecutors linked Cho to the Grape Street Crips, a predominantly black gang based in Watts’ Jordan Downs housing project, through tattoos and his Instagram account. Text messages from Cho shown during the trial said that if business owners didn’t pay him, they would “see the real demon” or “take the consequences” or that he would “kick you out of ktown,” the release said.
In May 2021, a doumi driver refused to pay Cho more money and was attacked by Cho and another man who beat him with a metal baseball bat until he was unconscious, then stole his minivan.
In July 2022, he shot at a car with doumi inside after a driver broke one of his rules, smashing glass that hit a woman in the neck. When another driver stopped paying in January 2023, Cho stole $1,000 from him and threatened to kill him.
When Cho was first arrested, authorities seized two guns, a partially built ghost gun, loaded magazines, an illegal knife, two baseball bats and more than $20,000 in cash, authorities said.
During the trial, Cho’s defense attorney said he was trying to “bring some order to the jungle,” arguing that Cho was trying to help protect companies from start-ups that could cut into the market.