He was convicted of a crime committed at age 19.
David Nam, 32, who has a wife and three young children half a world away, was formally sentenced yesterday to life in prison without parole for a 1996 killing during a botched home invasion in Olney.
Nam was found guilty Jan. 29 of second-degree murder in the Aug. 16, 1996, shooting of Anthony Schroeder, 77, a retired warehouse worker who lived alone at Fourth Street and Olney Avenue.
The crime - killing during the commission of another felony - carries an automatic life prison term, and Common Pleas Court Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes wanted to sentence Nam the same day.
But defense attorney Michael E. Wallace said he wanted Nam kept in Philadelphia so they could discuss an appeal, and Nam insisted on a presentencing investigation. So Hughes set a formal sentencing hearing.
Assistant District Attorney Mark Gilson said the courtroom was empty - none of Nam's family was here and Schroeder's remaining relatives no longer live here.
Gilson lambasted Nam for killing Schroeder and fleeing to South Korea, where he remained a fugitive while teaching English at a private school. He was arrested in 2008 and brought back to the United States.
Nam said nothing before sentencing. Wallace made a few brief remarks acknowledging the verdict and sentence.
Hughes castigated Nam for the killing, for embarrassing his family and two nations, and for renouncing his U.S. citizenship after fleeing to South Korea, though Nam insisted he did not.
Nam's flight from justice cost his parents $100,000 in cash that they put up to guarantee his $1 million bail. His parents, who renounced their U.S. citizenship and returned to South Korea in 2002, still owe the city the $900,000 balance.
The case resulted in an extradition treaty the United States signed with South Korea so Nam could be returned to face charges.
Included in the trial was Nam's handwritten confession to the killing, part of a draft of a letter designed to try to persuade South Korean officials not to extradite him.
He was also implicated by testimony from three accomplices to the botched home invasion. All three immediately identified Nam, then leader of the Olney teen gang AsianBoyz, as the triggerman who killed Schroeder with a single shot from a .22-caliber rifle.
All three pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and got five-year probationary sentences.
Contact staff writer Joseph A. Slobodzian at 215-854-2985 or jslobodzian@phillynews.com.
