Child molester lied about his crimes when he sought US citizenship, an NC jury finds
A Charlotte man may have thought freedom was finally near.
Kheungkham Vongphakdy, a 47-year-old from Laos, was scheduled to be released from prison in late 2023, after serving 13 years for child sexual assault, North Carolina prison records show.
Except for that check-marked box on the U.S. citizenship application form he filed way back in 2011, a jury in U.S. District Court in Charlotte found Tuesday.
Now Vongphakdy faces another 10 years behind bars, according to U.S. Attorney Dena King’s office.
Vongphakdy checked “no” when asked on his U.S. citizenship application form if he’d ever committed a crime for which he’d never been arrested, according to court documents.
Yet he had committed offenses, against a child in 2008 and 2009, Vongphakdy admitted in a Mecklenburg County courtroom in 2014 when he pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree sexual offense, federal prosecutors said in a news release Wednesday.
Per U.S. law, rape or sex abuse of a minor is an aggravated felony that would bar a person from gaining U.S. citizenship.
Things were looking up for Vongphakdy in 2011 when he lied on the form.
Five months after submitting his application, he was invited to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Charlotte. He received a certificate of naturalization for U.S. citizenship there and participated in a naturalization ceremony, prosecutors said.
Operation False Haven
King, the U.S. Attorney for North Carolina’s Western District, credits Operation False Haven for revealing Vongphakdy’s big lie on his application form.
The federal initiative finds and prosecutes “child molesters and other egregious felons who fraudulently obtained U.S. citizenship.” according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release.
On Tuesday, the federal jury in Charlotte found Vongphakdy guilty of unlawful procurement of citizenship, according to King’s office. The conviction also carries a $250,000 fine.
Vongphakdy’s sentencing date hasn’t been set, prosecutors said.
In January, Operation False Haven netted a 44-year-old Union County man for the same offense.
Vyacheslav Fyodorovitch Rizkhov, who was born in Azerbaijan, gained U.S. citizenship in 2019 after checking “no” to the same question on his application form, a federal jury in Greensboro found in January, prosecutors said in a news release at the time.
In Cabarrus County Superior Court in 2020, Rizkhov was convicted of sexual battery of a physically helpless person and two counts of indecent liberties with a child for crimes he committed in 2017, prosecutors said.
This story was originally published May 5, 2022 at 6:15 AM with the headline "Child molester lied about his crimes when he sought US citizenship, an NC jury finds."