By Grace Oldham | Arizona Republic
One legislative candidate’s seven-word Facebook biography attempts to capture his complex life in the simplest terms: “Freedom Fighter, political prisoner, received death penalty.”
Jae Chin, a small-business owner from Mesa vying for a seat in Arizona Senate, said he was a victim of harassment and worse by the former South Korean military government after fleeing to the United States.
It’s a backstory that he said involves an attempt to frame him for conspiring to assassinate a U.S. president, coercion by a Korean spy agency and the attempted murder of his father. That all happened in Texas, before Jae Chin and his family moved to Arizona for a fresh start.
Now, the dry cleaning business owner, who is a Republican running on a platform of being a champion for small businesses and liaison to the Korean community, says he hopes to put his past behind him to start another new chapter in the Arizona Legislature.
