A Washington dad pleads with Korean authorities to return his son, whose noncustodial mom is wanted in the U.S.
Bryan Sung was just 3 years old in June 2019 when his mother Min Jung Cho, then 42, allegedly took him to South Korea, where she was born.
Bryan’s father, Dr. Jay Sung (43), says that he has won court battles both in the U.S.A. and abroad, but remains separated from his son. He has not seen him for more than half the child’s lifetime.
The orthodontist said to Fox News Digital that Korea did not do anything to protect Bryan. They should send the U.S. Citizen back to his homeland, where law enforcement can be enforced and he can also be protected.
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Jay Sung and Bryan Sung in a selfie taken before the kidnapping of Bryan Sung by his non-custodial mom.
The judge who handled their divorce initially gave Sung full custody but allowed both parents to bring Bryan to Korea up to three times a year.
Cho brought Bryan to South Korea, and on the last scheduled day, Sung’s attorney called and informed him that the boy wouldn’t be sent back to the United States.
Sung, whose son’s whereabouts were unknown at the time, filed a Missing Person report with Redmond, Washington. Sung claims that South Korean police located Bryan at the maternal grandmother’s home, but they also told him to take his case to civil court.
Sung was born and raised in South Korea, but spent most of his childhood in Ohio. Sung served in the South Korean army and then returned to the U.S. for dental school at UCLA. He is an orthodontist now in Washington, and both he and son are U.S. Citizens.
Sung stated that Cho was not a permanent resident and her residency was revoked when she did not return to the country for over a year.
Min Jung Cho is wanted in Washington State on a warrant for custodial interferance since April 2020. She is accused of abducting her son Bryan, 3, to South Korea and refusing to comply with court orders to bring him back to his father. (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children).
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According to the National Center for Missing and Exposed Children, a Washington State warrant for Cho’s detention has been in force since April 20, 2019.
Sung, he revealed, filed a petition in 2019 under the Hague Convention which governs international abductions of children, trafficking, and adoptions.
Cho exhausted all her appeals after the court decided in his favor. The father claimed that she refused to give the boy up. The Korean courts have consistently sided with Sung. However, the father said that the law of Korea has a loophole in compliance which prevents law enforcers from taking a child away by force.
Sung claims he’s the only legal guardian recognized in either country, but he’s helpless because the Korean authorities refused to comply with a court order that the child should be returned to his father. He said they even fined Cho and arrested her twice, but didn’t return his son.
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Sung launched a social-media campaign to demand that the South Korean government does more for the return of his son. He also conducted a protest by himself outside the Korean Consulate in Seattle.
Dr. Jay Sung, a Seattle resident who rents a billboard to protest in front of the South Korean consulate demanding his son’s return. His son was abducted in 2019 by his estranged spouse and is still in South Korea despite multiple court orders for him to be returned.
Sung’s situation has attracted the support of Rep. Kim Schrier from his local district, the State Department, and the FBI.
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In the past few years, the State Department has chided South Korea over a “pattern” of non-compliance with the Convention because of the performance by the country’s police services in enforcing court orders.
The State Department’s Action Report 2023 on International Child Abduction states that “specifically, [Republic of Korea] police authorities failed to enforce the return orders in abductions” As a result, 50% of the requests for the return to abducted children made under the Convention were not resolved for more than a year.
Bryan Sung is pictured on a flyer for missing persons from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. His father reported him as missing, and South Korean police found him at the home of his maternal grandmother overseas. This is where his noncustodial mom allegedly took him in 2019.
A spokesperson for the State Department told Fox News Digital, however, that although South Korean officials are cooperating with Bryan’s case in this country, U.S. diplomatic representatives have expressed concerns to their Korean counterparts about the lengthy process of returning Bryan.
The spokesperson stated that “we have brought up this issue many times with Republic of Korea representatives in Washington and Seoul and expressed our concerns about the lengthy judicial process and the lack of enforcement of Hague Abduction Convention Return Orders,”
According to a spokesperson from the FBI’s Seattle Office, the Bureau was granted jurisdiction over certain cases of child abduction in 1932’s “Lindbergh Law” also known as the Federal Kidnapping Act following the abduction by famed aviator Charles Lindburgh of his then-2-year old son.
She said that child kidnappings can be very time-consuming and require coordination with law enforcement agencies both inside and outside of the United States, as well as with our legat offices which support the FBI’s mission abroad.
According to the State Department Action Report, it takes an average of just under three (3) years to solve a case of child abduction.
Bryan will be away for five years if he does not return by April. Sung stated that even South Korean legislators have held hearings and concluded that their system was flawed. They are now drafting reforms. Sung said that Korean officials didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry for comment.
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Sung denied that a SWAT team would be needed to rescue his son. The case was similar to the 2000 operation in which Cuban shipwreck survivors were returned to their fathers.
FILE – Elian Gonzalez, a young boy who was found in Florida by government officials searching for him, is being held in a wardrobe by Donato Dalymple, one the two men that rescued him from the ocean. Gonzalez survived a shipwreck in which his mother died in 1999, and washed ashore in Florida. He had relatives in Miami but his father wanted to return him to Cuba. U.S. authorities took Gonzalez in a dramatic manner after his American relatives tried to keep him here.
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He told Fox News Digital, “I’m not opposed to it if that is really, really necessary and that is the only way that the child can be returned.” “But, at the same time using ‘force” on the child does not necessarily mean that we’re going do it in a very traumatizing way. Force is sometimes needed. If the child does not want to go to the school, you may have to force them into the car.