Man who attacked girl at IU violin camp to be deported

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) - A man sentenced to house arrest for attacking a 13-year-old girl with a pocketknife in 2019 as she was attending an Indiana University violin camp is now awaiting deportation to South Korea.

Dongwook Ko, 19, is being held at the Clay County Justice Center, about 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) northwest of Bloomington, after being taken into custody last week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Ko, a South Korean resident, has lived in the United States on a temporary visa with his mother - an IU graduate student - since he was 11. Under federal law, a non-resident convicted of an aggravated felony can be deported, The Herald-Times reported.

He pleaded guilty in July to criminal confinement while armed with a deadly weapon, and was sentenced to eight years of house arrest followed by two years of probation.

Ko was 17 when he attacked a girl he knew from the previous summer's camp as she was playing her violin alone in a Merrill Hall practice room during IU's Summer String Academy.

The girl said she feared for her life as Ko held a pocketknife blade to her throat in a locker room. She suffered cuts to her hands, arms and legs before an IU employee who heard her screams stopped Ko, and she fled to safety.

The girl's parents were upset that Ko was sentenced to house arrest instead of prison. Her mother said in a statement that no prison term would mean 'Å“an immediate arrest by ICE and a real chance for his total freedom in 2021. ... That's not justice."