U student gets out of jail and goes back less than 10 days later after extorting roommate
Dec 12, 2021, 6:48 AM | Updated: 6:49 am
FILE — (KSL TV)
(KSL TV)
After being arrested for selling marijuana from his dorm room, Kang Jie Lee, a student at the University of Utah was released from jail only to go back after extorting his roommate for money.
According to court documents, Lee was first arrested on Nov. 29 for selling weed out of his dorm room. At approximately 6:50 a.m. on Nov. 29 Lee returned to his dorm room after being booked the night before. Lee’s roommate was still sleeping when he said that Lee came in and verbally intimidated him by saying things like, “you ruined my life,” and blaming the roommate for turning him in.
Lee then pressured the roommate to pay him just under $1,000 through venmo in reparations.
Lee continued to pressure and intimidate his roommate over the next few days, forcing him to venmo a few thousand more dollars.
At 6 p.m. on Dec. 9, Lee approached his roommate again, banging on his door until he opened it. Lee once again blamed the roommate for “ruining his life,” and turning him in on previous charges. Lee then punched his roommate multiple times.
Lee left the room for a brief moment, returning with a kitchen knife and began to threaten his roommate with it. Lee demanded his roommate pay him everything in his bank account. Fearing his own safety, the roommate transferred a large sum of money to Lee via venmo and remained in his room.
When Lee finally left the building, his roommate reached out to campus resources for help.
When detectives interviewed Lee, he confessed to “shoving” his roommate and forced the roommate to pay $850 for attorney fees as well as some other transactions.
Lee said he was a former sergeant in the Singapore military and was trained to scare people. He said he could see the fear in his roommate’s eyes during this encounter.
Lee was arrested on suspicion of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, aggravated assault threat with show of violence, tampering with a witness, threat/use of dangerous weapon in fight, theft by extortion.
