Social Security worker offers client cash for sex in MA, feds say. ‘Help each other out’
After seeing a client who had lost her job, federal prosecutors said a Social Security employee offered the woman money in exchange for meeting him for sex in Massachusetts.
The now-former employee, Dae Sung Kim, 36, of Auburn, pleaded guilty Feb. 27 to attempting to induce a person to travel in interstate commerce to engage in prostitution, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said in a Feb. 28 news release.
“In response to the government’s public statements, Mr. Kim looks forward to a sentencing where I zealously advocate for him within the boundaries of the law and ethics in court,” Adam C. Russell, a Boston-based criminal defense attorney representing Kim, said in a statement to McClatchy News on March 3.
Kim was arrested in October 2024, when prosecutors said he traveled to a hotel and expected to meet the woman for sex inside his car.
He was confronted by authorities instead, according to prosecutors.
‘Help each other out’
The woman attended an in-person appointment with Kim at the SSA field office in Gardner in March 2024, according to prosecutors. Gardner is located about a 65-mile drive northwest from Boston.
At the time, the woman was unemployed and wanted to obtain Social Security benefits, prosecutors said.
Kim ultimately referred her to a SSA office in New Hampshire, where she lived, according to court documents.
During her visit, Kim searched the woman’s Social Security file on an SSA computer system and found her phone number, court documents say.
Then, shortly after her visit, he called and spoke with her, according to prosecutors.
“Kim indicated that he understood she was in a difficult situation and stated that maybe they could ‘work something out’ that would benefit them both,” prosecutors said.
According to an affidavit, law enforcement started monitoring their communications, including on March 15, 2024, when Kim texted the woman and asked: “would you be open to having some fun for $.”
“Maybe we can help each other out,” Kim suggested in one text message, and asked if she used birth control, the affidavit shows.
In another phone call that month, Kim made the same suggestion and offered to give her money for sex, according to prosecutors.
By June 2024, an undercover agent with the SSA Office of the Inspector General started messaging Kim while posing as the woman and using a different phone number, according to the affidavit.
The agent told him the woman had gotten a new phone, the affidavit says.
In text messages that followed, Kim offered the woman $100 in exchange for meeting him at a Massachusetts hotel for sex, prosecutors said.
He wanted to pay her to have sex in a car in the hotel’s parking lot, according to prosecutors.
When Kim was confronted and interviewed by law enforcement at the hotel, he told authorities that he obtained his client’s phone number and offered to help her financially, the affidavit says.
“She was upset and she was talking about how she was in a tough situation with her kids, so I just kind of felt bad for her,” Kim told law enforcement, explaining why he called her, according to the affidavit.
“When asked why he was in the parking lot that night, Kim stated he was there ‘to meet up with (the woman)’ and ‘to possibly hook up,’” a special agent with the SSA Office of the Inspector General wrote in the affidavit.
Kim faces up to 20 years in prison on the charge of attempting to induce a person to travel in interstate commerce to engage in prostitution, according to prosecutors.
“Mr. Kim abused his position with the Social Security Administration and violated the public’s trust by not only unlawfully accessing the personal information of a Social Security beneficiary but also attempted to persuade that same beneficiary to cross state lines to engage in prostitution,” Amy Connelly, special agent in charge for the SSA Office of the Inspector General, said in a statement to McClatchy News on March 3.
“This is reprehensible conduct by a public official, someone called to serve the people, not take advantage of them.”
Kim’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 10, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
This story was originally published March 3, 2025 at 12:00 PM with the headline "Social Security worker offers client cash for sex in MA, feds say. ‘Help each other out’."
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