`Angelic father` exposed as con man abusing disabled people

An elderly man who promoted himself as an “angelic father” has been exposed as an abusive con artist after adopting and abusing mentally disabled people and taking their government subsidies.

Jang Jin-nam, 71, began to raise mentally disabled children who were abandoned or brought by their parents after being discharged from military service in 1964. Instead of filing official adoption papers, he registered the births of 21 children until 1986.

Serving nine months in prison for defamation in 1989, he found his home in Seoul`s Gangseo district demolished after his release because it was illegal and his children were scattered. He found six of them and settled deep in the mountains in Wonju, Gangwon Province in 1997.

The suspect`s abuses began after he moved to the eastern province. He built an illegal mud hut distant from his home where he lived with his wife. The signboard “Corporation of God: House of Love” was hanged on the hut and he allowed six disabled people live there.

A 38-year-old man diagnosed with Level 1 mental illness tried to run away because of tough work. Jang punished the failed escapee by hitting his soles and body with a bat, and also battered other disabled people living at the hut, saying, “Why were you just looking at him?” Jang then tattooed the man’s name and the phrase “Level 1 mental illness, mobile phone: 010-XXXX-XXXX, Disabled” on his arms, the backs of his hands and even his fingers.

The disabled people he held captive were chronically malnourished, and two of them died in a hospital a few years ago. Jang claimed that medical staff killed them due to malpractice, though he left the corpses in the hospital morgue for more than a decade.

Ironically, Jang was introduced as a Good Samaritan on air in 1988 and 1994 and nicknamed “angelic father.” He preached at churches to get donation of money and goods for the disabled people in his care. He used the monthly government subsidies for six people amounting to 1.78 million won (1,640 U.S. dollars) as living expenses after not reporting the deaths of the two people at the hut.

Police found the surviving victims at the hut suffering from diarrhea, bloody feces, anemia, skin disease, and urinary illnesses. The victims ranged in age between 37 and 46 but stooped like elderly people. One woman even had no teeth.

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea said Thursday that it asked prosecutors to investigate Jang on the charges of violence, sexual harassment and embezzlement.

sunggyu@donga.com