New lawsuit alleges decades of grooming, sex abuse by KC-area Taekwondo teacher
Editor’s note: This story contains details of sexual assault.
Three months after a well-known local Taekwondo instructor was charged with sexually assaulting a child under the age of 14, a new lawsuit alleges he abused two former students.
Se Chun Pak, 56, of Pak’s Academy, is accused in the suit of grooming and sexually abusing the two students decades apart. One of the former students said she was assaulted from 2024 to 2025 and the second dated her alleged abuse to the 1990s.
The suit — filed recently on behalf of the two alleged victims, identified only as E.G. and R.G. — also asserts that the group of business entities that operated the academy locations “knew, or should have known” about the abuse. Pak and five businesses associated with Pak’s Academy are being sued.
“For decades, Pak had unfettered access to minor girls,” the lawsuit said. “The sexual abuse was carried out at Defendants’ Raymore and Grandview locations, among other locations.”
In December, court records show that Pak was arrested and later indicted by a grand jury on four counts of sexual crimes, including two counts of statutory rape or attempted statutory rape.
A probable cause affidavit for initial charges filed in early December shows that Lee’s Summit detectives responded to the alleged victim’s home in late September. The victim, who is under the age of 14, later told a forensic interviewer that she was assaulted twice.
As of Wednesday morning, Pak was still being held in the Jackson County detention center. His trial, court records show, has been scheduled for February 2027.
One of the two plaintiffs represented in the lawsuit is connected to the criminal investigation.
The suit, filed in Jackson County Circuit Court last week, requests a jury trial. No attorney, at this point, has entered the civil case on Pak’s behalf.
“Based on my experience and the allegations and the criminal complaint and the information that we’re aware of, this kind of decades-long pattern and practice of grooming students and then leading to the eventual sexual assault on them is abhorrent,” said Lauren Dollar, one of two attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
“And likely preventable,” Dollar said, “if people around had acted and supervised him as needed.”
Years of alleged abuse
Pak began working as an employee at the academy his father ran in 1987. Since then, he has been an employee and served as an instructor and “managed various Pak’s Academy locations,” according to the lawsuit. And in 2007, he became president of the business.
Around August 2020, E.G. enrolled as a student at Pak’s Academy in Raymore, according to court records. The alleged abuse began four years later.
“In 2024, while at Pak’s Academy, Pak engaged in sexual intercourse with E.G., despite E.G. being a minor,” it said. “From approximately 2024 through 2025, Pak continued to solicit sexual contact with E.G. at various locations, including Pak’s Academy.”
Decades before, around 1990, plaintiff R.G. enrolled as a Taekwondo student at the Pak’s Academy location in Grandview. She was 13 years old at the time.
From 1990 to 1992, Pak told R.G. that “they were in a relationship,” the lawsuit alleges.
“During that time, Pak was grooming R.G. in an effort to gain her trust and compliance,” the document said. “ ... Pak took R.G. shopping and bought her gifts.”
He also allegedly took her to the Grandview academy location “after hours,” the suit said, and “engaged in sexual intercourse with R.G., despite R.G. being a minor.”
Pak’s Academy has students of various ages, from adults to children of all ages, and as young as 3 years old.
“Employees, instructors and staff throughout Pak’s Academy knew or should have known of the inappropriate contact and abuse that was occurring,” the lawsuit said. “Pak’s Academy and Pak were trusted with and had a duty to protect, care for, support, supervise, and provide for the safety and well-being of participants.
“ … Pak’s Academy knowingly placed a sexual predator in close proximity to minor girls, including Plaintiff E.G. and Plaintiff R.G.”
Are there other victims?
The suit said that because of Pak’s actions, the two victims “suffered psychological trauma and emotional injuries, including anxiety, hypervigilance, distress, and other manifestations of trauma.” The two did not understand, the suit said, “that such symptoms were caused by sexual abuse.”
“Plaintiffs’ delayed recognition of the abuse and resulting injuries was a foreseeable and direct consequence of childhood sexual abuse, grooming behavior, and Defendants’ concealment and misrepresentations regarding Defendant Pak’s character and conduct,” according to the filing.
The suit alleges that R.G. and E.G. did not recognize “the sexual abuse perpetrated by Defendant Pak as abuse,” nor did they understand that their “resulting psychological and emotional injuries were caused by Defendants’ wrongful conduct, until approximately 2025.”
Dollar said that Pak “threatened the families to not say anything.”
The attorney also said that based on her “experience and the accusations and what I know so far,” she does believe “there are likely other victims or survivors.”
“And so to the extent that they’re out there,” she said, “I would just encourage and implore them to come forward to tell their story and to hold him accountable.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2026 at 10:24 AM.
