South Barrington man gets presidential pardon

A South Barrington man was among 19 people across the nation to receive a pardon from President Bush Tuesday.

Back in 1985, James Won Hee Kang, now 65, was sentenced to a year's probation and fined $5,000 after pleading guilty to trafficking in counterfeit goods, said his attorney, Kie-Young Shim.

Kang is a first-generation Korean-American citizen who at the time was running a retail shop on Chicago's Maxwell Street, Shim said. Among the merchandise Kang sold were watches labeled as Rolexes.

But Shim insists no customers could possibly have thought they were real Rolexes, given their price was $20 each.

"That's not even an imitation," he said. "It's just a toy."

Still, on the advice of a different attorney representing him at the time, Kang pleaded guilty to violating trademark law and paid the fine.

Later, Kang became a director at Foster Bank in Chicago and proved very effective as a loan analyzer, Shim said.

But during a bank reorganization, the FDIC learned of Kang's old conviction and disqualified him from the position he'd been in, Shim said.

That eventually led to the 2002 filing of a pardon petition with the U.S. Department of Justice.

"He was a very good loan analyzer," Shim said. "We thought we should ask President Bush for a pardon."

After more than six years, though, Shim said he and Kang had just about given up hope. Then the call came at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

Both Shim and a Department of Justice spokesman said a pardon isn't meant to second-guess a previous finding of guilt but is an official act of forgiveness on the part of the government.

It allows the previous blemish to be removed from Kang's record so that he can reapply for the type of work he'd been barred from for several years, Shim said.

"He's worked very hard and he's a good family man," Shim said. "Now he can be a more useful citizen."

Kang deferred all comment to his attorney Tuesday.

Also among those who received pardons from Bush Tuesday was a man who is considered a hero in Israel and who broke the law to supply aircraft to Jews fighting in Israel's 1948 war of independence.

In the summer of 1948, Charles Winters, a non-Jewish Miami businessman who exported produce, worked with others to transfer two B-17 "Flying Fortresses" to Israel's defense forces. He personally flew one of the aircraft from Miami to Czechoslovakia, where that plane and a third B-17 were restored.

The three B-17s were the only heavy bombers in the Israeli Air Force. It is reported that attacks with the bombers helped turned the war in Israel's favor.

Over the years, Winters, told his family little of his conviction in 1949 for violating the Neutrality Act for conspiring to export aircraft to a foreign country. He was fined $5,000 and sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Winters received the pardon posthumously. He died in 1984.

• Daily Herald news services contributed to this report.