Pennsylvania prosecutor: will not fight release of Korean businessman

By David DeKok

HARRISBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania county prosecutor said on Tuesday he would not pursue an appeal of a 2014 federal court ruling that freed a Korean businessman after 24 years behind bars for the arson death of his daughter.

Han Tak Lee, 80, of Queens, New York, was freed from prison last year after a federal magistrate ruled the arson evidence used to convict Lee of murder was based on outmoded beliefs about arson.

"Our research indicates that the chance of a successful appeal is too remote to legitimately pursue," said Monroe County District Attorney David Christine in a statement to Reuters. "All legal avenues to preserve the verdict have now been exhausted."

Asked if this was the end, he responded, "Sadly, yes."

Christine persuaded a jury that Lee had poured gasoline and fuel oil on the floor of a cabin at Hebron Camp, a religious retreat near Stroudsburg, to kill his 20-year-old mentally ill daughter.

Arson investigators testified that they found multiple ignition points and other factors then believed to be proof that the fire had been intentionally set.

Lee, who had maintained the fire started accidentally, was sentenced to life without parole in 1991.

Nearly all the technical evidence used to convict Lee was based on beliefs about arson fires that have since been discredited, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled in August, when it upheld Lee's release.

A turning point in the case came in the 1990s, Goldberger said, when scientists studied homes destroyed by a California wildfire and found in the ruins the same sort of indicators that for years had been used to prove arson.

Lee's lead attorney, Peter Goldberger of Ardmore, Pennsylvania, said on Tuesday he was relieved that the case was over.

"It is a happy day, even when justice is so long in coming," Goldberger said.

Goldberger and his law partner took on Lee's case pro bono nearly 15 years ago after being approached by Korean supporters of Lee.

(Editing by Laila Kearney and Sandra Maler)