The married ex-mistress of an architect accused of plotting to shoot up a high-end Soho design firm took the stand at his Manhattan trial Monday and described the map of terror she allegedly saw the accused mass murderer had sketched out for the sickening plot.
Interior designer Sodam Ha, 33, of Edgewater, NJ, testified that she had a steamy two-month romance with Kon Jang, 35, her former underling at the posh CetraRuddy firm.
But when she ended it, her spurned lover began acting strangely and even told her he bought a gun, she said — which is when she spotted a child-like sketch of the firm’s office on Jang’s desk, with “X”s scrawled over everyone’s cubicles except for hers and his.
“He keeps telling me he hates everybody and he wants to destroy the world,” she said on the first day of Jang’s non-jury trial.
“It was the scariest day for me . . . I was so scared,” she said of May 27, when she allegedly saw the drawing. “But he told me I would be safe.”
That evening, she went to her supervisor with a photo she says she secretly snapped of the sketch, telling him Jang was “planning a mass shooting at work.”
It was later discovered that Jang’s menacing firearm was just an inoperable BB gun.
Jang was originally charged with a felony rap for making terroristic threats and misdemeanor harassment, but prosecutors dismissed the top charge due to a lack of evidence.
But even though Jang may not have intended to carry out the attack, he harassed Ha by trying to make her think he did, prosecutor Christopher Prevost argued in opening statements.
“This was some sort of twisted attempt to get attention from her,” he said.
The defense countered that Ha spun the outlandish tale after Jang threatened to disclose their tryst to her husband.
“She made this story up in hopes she’d get Mr. Jang fired because getting him fired would get him out of the country and away from her,” defense lawyer Howard Myerowitz said.
The Korean national, who lost his job after he was arrested and spent 50 days in jail before he could make bail, is in the country on a work visa.
The pair met for hot-and-heavy trysts in Jang’s car and at the office at least four times, the married mother confessed to Judge Robert Mandelbaum.
The Korean designer sobbed as she left the courtroom. On the upside for Ha, however, Jang’s no longer in love with her.
“She destroyed my future,” he said. “It’s too painful.”