A federal jury in Alexandria, Va., yesterday convicted Jihoon Park, 52, of Chantilly, Va., on three counts of wire fraud and two counts of bankruptcy fraud, closing out a case that accused the former MML Investment Services broker of stealing more than $2.5 million from people in his own Korean-American community.
Park drew on personal relationships and his past registration with MML to persuade acquaintances to let him invest their savings, according to court records and trial evidence. He promised safe investments with outsized returns, telling one client her principal was guaranteed and that she would earn 7% compound interest a month, an FBI affidavit in the case said. (MML is the broker-dealer subsidiary of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company.)
Prosecutors said he instead moved victims’ money through his own bank and cryptocurrency accounts and used it to help buy a $1.235 million house in Chantilly.
Park’s registration as an MML representative ended December 31, 2022, according to BrokerCheck. But he kept misrepresenting that affiliation for more than a year and a half afterward, prosecutors said, including to a client who put $300,000 with him in August 2024. That client later told investigators he would not have invested had he known Park no longer worked for the firm.
The affidavit identified three victims in the criminal case alleging wire fraud: a divorced Virginia woman, 60, who invested roughly $1.66 million between 2021 and 2022 after receiving a settlement; a 72-year-old Virginia resident who gave Park a total of $395,000 in two transactions; and a 51-year-old Maryland resident who put in $1.025 million beginning in late 2018. Financial records reviewed by the FBI found little of that money went where Park said it would, the affidavit said.
The bankruptcy fraud counts stem from what happened after one victim sued him. The Justice Department said Park transferred assets to his wife and hid his cryptocurrency holdings before filing a Chapter 7 petition in January 2025, telling the bankruptcy court he had just 34 cents in financial assets and no cryptocurrency to his name.
That bankruptcy case then pulled MML Investors Services into the fray when the victim sued the firm in Fairfax County Circuit Court, arguing MML was liable for Park’s conduct as his principal. Separately, MML is suing Park to hold him liable for any judgment against the firm through indemnification claims.
Park faces up to 20 years in prison on each wire fraud count and five years on each bankruptcy fraud count. He is scheduled to be sentenced December 10, 2026.
He was permanently barred by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority beginning Oct. 6, 2025.