N.Y. / REGION

Venerable Korean American Group in New York Descends Into Chaos

By  and JIHA HAM
Sung Ki Min, 60, is one of two people claiming to be the president of the Korean American Association of Greater New York. Christian Hansen for The New York Times 
Should you happen to meet the president of the Korean American Association of Greater New York this spring, you might find yourself speaking with a 60-year-old Korean man named Sung Ki Min. Then again, you might instead find yourself talking with a 54-year-old woman named Minsun Kim.
Both will introduce themselves with unwavering self-confidence as the one and only president of the association. Both will insist that the other is a total impostor. Neither is happy with the situation.
“I feel uncomfortable,” Mrs. Kim acknowledged.
“We have a little problem to solve,” Mr. Min asserted.
Such is the disarray that has befallen the once-venerable institution, one of the oldest groups in the region’s Korean community. Founded in 1960, the association for years helped new Korean immigrants integrate with American society. But its importance to the community has waned considerably, and the group now appears to serve a largely ceremonial function in support of its president, an unpaid elected post.
The struggle for control of the group began in February, when Minsun Kim, 54, was disqualified as a candidate for the association’s presidential election.Christian Hansen for The New York Times 
The struggle for control of the group began in February, when Mrs. Kim was disqualified as a candidate for the association’s presidential election, scheduled for March 8; association officials accused her of campaigning sooner than the rules permitted. The disqualification prompted a lawsuit against the association and an effort to impeach Mr. Min, which led to further litigation.
Not content to let the lawsuits run their course, a group of former association presidents sympathetic to Mrs. Kim broke into the association’s offices on April 7, changed the locks and declared themselves a caretaker government.
Since then, the conflict has reached new heights of fractiousness.
Two days after the break-in, the leaders of the coup were removed from the association’s office by the police, which only seemed to sharpen the divide.
The former presidents, saying the vote to impeach Mr. Min had been binding, called for new elections, and Mrs. Kim announced her candidacy. Facing no opposition — Mr. Min said he was already the rightful president-elect — association officials designated Mrs. Kim the president-elect.
Both announced plans to hold their inaugurations on May 1 in the association’s offices on 24th Street in Chelsea, setting up a showdown.
Mrs. Kim arrived at the building shortly before 10 a.m., along with dozens of supporters dressed in business attire. The group, which included many retirees, crowded into the lobby, preparing to take an elevator to the association’s offices on the sixth floor.
Mr. Min, his staff and the association’s lawyers were already upstairs and had no intention of letting Ms. Kim enter the offices, apparently preventing the key-operated elevator from reaching the top floor.
Down in the lobby, confusion and impatience grew. Some of Mrs. Kim’s supporters made forays up the two emergency staircases, as though assaulting a hilltop citadel, but were blocked by the locked doors on the sixth floor.
A Kim loyalist appeared with an elevator key and a delegation crammed in, only to be repelled by Mr. Min’s loyalists, who were posted at the elevator door on the sixth floor. The Kim contingent returned to the lobby and spoke of violence and verbal abuse.
The police appeared. “Who’s in charge?” one officer asked.
“Me!” Mrs. Kim said brightly, explaining that she had been illegally barred from her office. The officers seemed perplexed and eventually left, declaring the standoff a non-police matter.
In the association’s office, the mood was reserved. “So far so good,” Mr. Min said calmly. “I feel no shame.”
One of the association’s lawyers, John D. Lovi, appeared in the lobby.
“Are you Minsun Kim?” he asked.
On May 1, Mrs. Kim's inauguration ceremony unfolded on the Chelsea sidewalk, against a backdrop of seven grand floral arrangements. Jinwoo Cho/The Korea Times 
“Yes,” she replied.
He thrust a document into her hands and told her, “You’ve been sued.” It was a federal trademark lawsuit accusing her of violating the law by representing herself as the group’s president-elect and using the group’s logo.
Large bouquets of flowers and seven trays of Korean food, intended for Mrs. Kim’s ceremony, were delivered to the lobby.
Minutes passed. Mrs. Kim’s supporters continued to rush up and down the staircases looking for a weakness in Mr. Min’s defenses. The food was turning cold.
“We cannot wait here forever,” a visibly frustrated Mrs. Kim said, then turned to a group of Korean journalists. “Camera?” she asked, by way of invitation, and she, the journalists and several of her supporters crammed into the elevator.
As the group ascended, Kyong Ro Lee, a former president of the association, issued tactical instructions: Mrs. Kim and her female assistant would be in the vanguard.
“If anyone touches you, just fall down,” he said.
The elevator doors opened and Mrs. Kim and her group surged forward. There was scuffling and a bilingual hailstorm of expletives.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!” Mrs. Kim exclaimed.
A Min supporter, an older woman wearing green trousers, collapsed to the ground and lay there motionless.
Someone opened the sixth-floor doors to the emergency staircases, and more of Mrs. Kim’s supporters poured into the hallway.
Attention turned from the fallen woman — there seemed to be a consensus that she was fine — and the delegations went toe to toe. Mr. Lovi was posted in front of the office door, the last barrier to Mr. Min’s redoubt.
Mrs. Kim’s supporters implored Mr. Lovi to allow them in so they could hold their ceremony. “I’m not sharing with any fake organization,” Mr. Lovi growled.
“We are Koreans!” hollered Jhong D. Byun, a former association president aligned with Mrs. Kim. “I am a former president!”
“What’s going on?”
Several hours after Mrs. Kim's, Mr. Min held his own inauguration ceremony in the large meeting room in the association’s offices. Jinwoo Cho/The Korea Times 
Paramedics had appeared, and a narrow passage was cleared to the woman in green trousers. They quickly assessed the situation — “I know you’re not unconscious,” one told her. “Can you please stand up?” — and they took her away in a wheelchair.
Soon after, a contingent of police officers stepped off the elevator and into the fray. The lights started to blink, and the scene took on the herky-jerky look of stop-motion animation. “Who’s doing that to the lights?” an officer bellowed.
The police sent everyone downstairs, except for the lawyers and Mrs. Kim.
“He is the one who bought this building,” Mr. Lee said indignantly, pointing to Ik Jo Kang, another former president.
Minutes later, Mrs. Kim emerged from the building with the police, a studied smile on her face.
“This is really unexpected,” she said to a reporter, adding, “Please do not take this too seriously.”
After conferring with supporters, Mrs. Kim concluded that the bylaws permitted her inauguration to occur on the sidewalk. Someone drew a connection to the inauguration of President Lyndon B. Johnson aboard Air Force One after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
“We will follow the John F. Kennedy rule,” said one of her supporters, Andrew Sokchu Kim, yet another former president.
“Today we all are here with big joy,” announced Mrs. Kim, with no apparent irony. “This is something we can show to the other communities.”
And the ceremony unfolded, on the Chelsea sidewalk, against a backdrop of seven grand floral arrangements.
Several hours later, Mr. Min held his own inauguration in the large meeting room in the association’s offices. It apparently went off without a hitch.
On May 13, the sides met again at State Supreme Court in Manhattan for a hearing on one of the several lawsuits that have emerged from the dispute: Mrs. Kim’s complaint alleging that she had been illegally kicked off the ballot earlier this year.
But before the judge, Margaret A. Chan, could get to the heart of the matter, Mrs. Kim’s lawyer, Jerry H. Goldfeder, announced that he was seeking the disqualification of Mr. Lovi for his role in the May 1 showdown. He also said he was seeking the disqualification of one of Mr. Lovi’s co-counsels for a separate reason.
“Here we have a counsel, an attorney, making himself a player in this unfolding drama,” Mr. Goldfeder declared. (Last week, he filed the motion, yet it sought the disqualification of only Mr. Lovi’s co-counsel.)
Judge Chan suggested she would have to set aside more time than usual to hear the full arguments.
“I think this will be a much longer motion,” Judge Chan said. “You think?” Mr. Goldfeder replied.
“I have that suspicion,” the judge said.
A version of this article appears in print on May 26, 2015, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Civic Group Is Upended as 2 Claim Presidency. Order Reprints|  Today's Paper|Subscribe