AURORA, Colo. — A man who was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 2014 served only a fraction of that time, and now he's accused of sexually assaulting a 7-year-old Aurora girl earlier this month about 18 months after his prison release, according to records obtained by 9NEWS.
Content Warning: This story involves details about child sex assault and may be disturbing to some readers.
Kenneth Dean Lee, now 65, was paroled from the Department of Corrections (DOC) on April 22, 2020 after serving only about 9.5 years of his sentence, according to a spokesperson.
Documents obtained by 9NEWS indicate he was released because “appropriate treatment dosage” was received and “adequate institutional conduct” was met. It also indicates that Lee will be on parole for the rest of his life.
"This is extremely gut wrenching as this deranged individual preyed on vulnerable individuals – when this was reviewed by the board the individual was participating in offense specific treatment, had met the criteria required to be considered for parole, and medical professionals believed he was at low risk to society to reoffend," the parole board said in a statement released to 9NEWS.
This case was considered on these merits in December 2019, granted in January 2020 and had nothing to do with the pandemic.
Under state law, the sexual assault case was not defined as violent crime, which made Lee eligible for parole after serving about a third of his sentence.
Lee started his sentence in November of 2014. He was given 1,489 days of credit for time served in jail prior to being sentenced.
According to the Parole Board, the Department of Corrections determines when a person becomes eligible to be reviewed for parole.
Once a person reaches their parole eligibility date, the parole board is then required to review their application for parole every year with a few exceptions.
Lee's parole eligibility date was in October of 2016, and he had been reviewed for parole each year since 2016.
"He was one of the most dangerous offenders I had ever encountered," said attorney Amy Ferrin who prosecuted the case against Lee in 2014 in Arapahoe County.
At the time, Ferrin was a deputy district attorney for the 18th Judicial District. She said she was not surprised at all to hear Lee was accused of reoffending.
"Eligible for parole doesn't mean good candidate for parole, especially when you have an indeterminant or life time sentencing option available to you," she said.
Lee was arrested on Dec. 10, 2021 and faces charges of sexual assault on a child and first-degree burglary. Aurora police officers were told a man, later identified as Lee, entered a residence around noon, identified himself as an immigration official, and proceeded to assault the victim.
According to an arrest affidavit for Lee from APD, he knocked on the door of the apartment and specifically asked for the girl by name and said he needed to speak with her alone in a bedroom.
The two were alone in the room for about five minutes before he left the room and the apartment, the affidavit says. Someone at the home then went into the bedroom and found the girl lying on a bed under covers, according to the document. The girl eventually told that person that the man had touched her, and that person called Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to the affidavit. That person learned that no agents had been dispatched to the home, the affidavit says.
Lee has a criminal history with a pattern of similar allegations, and it is believed he specifically targeted immigrant and refugee families, APD said.
The 18th Judicial District Attorney's Office said Lee was sentenced to 23 years in 2014 in connection to a series of sexual assaults between August and October of 2010.
Lee has been in custody since 2010 – initially in the county jail before he was transferred to DOC in late 2014 following his conviction. He became eligible for parole in 2016 and had his first of several parole hearings in January of that year.
9NEWS obtained audio of five hearings between 2016 and 2019, and in one of the recordings, Lee described his own behavior as “reprehensible.” In another he said he had "regrets" and "remorse" about what he had done.
>Editor's Note: 9NEWS is choosing to not post any of the audio at this time.
"The only amends I can make to the victims of my crimes is by my commitment to do no more harm and have no more victims," Lee said during a December 2019 hearing.
During each hearing, Lee was asked whether he was, in fact, guilty, and he replied “yes” every time. He was then asked to describe what happened, which he did in detail.
“I impersonated a doctor from immigration and I went and I sexually assaulted a nine-year-old girl,” Lee said during a July 2019 hearing. In that hearing, he also said he had five victims that were not on the record and that he had committed “50 plus” incidents of voyeurism involving women. Some of the incident occurred in women's bathrooms and office buildings, Lee said during a 2019 parole hearing.
Lee said during his 2016 hearing that he would be “no problem to anyone in society now” and that he could “guarantee” that he would never have contact with law enforcement again other than his parole officers.
However, at the time of the Dec. 10, 2021 incident for which he currently faces charges, Lee was on parole and wearing an ankle monitor, the affidavit for his arrest says.
Coordinates from the GPS device placed him in the area where the assault occurred around the time it was reported, according to the affidavit.
In parole hearing audio from 2016, Lee said he had been incarcerated since October 2010 and through July 2017, had not received any sexual offender treatment while behind bars. Part of the reason for that, according to the audio, was a waitlist for treatment. Records obtained by 9NEWS indicate he began sex offender treatment on June 15, 2018.
Investigators said Lee claimed to be an immigration doctor to gain access to the victims' homes. Lee admitted to that during parole hearings.
Investigators working the 2010 case linked Lee to a series of 1996 sexual assaults in Aurora and said he also impersonated an immigration doctor while committing those crimes, according to the district attorney's office.
Lee was also charged for those crimes, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison to be served concurrently with the other 2014 sentence.
The victims in the 1996 and 2010 incidents were all Vietnamese females between the ages of 9 and 50.
During a January 2017 parole hearing, Lee was asked why he targeted Vietnamese families, and he replied, “It was probably their naivety.” He elaborated during the hearing that he “took advantage of their ignorance of the American system.” He was asked about that again during a 2019 hearing and said it was “opportunistic” and that he had “no malice” toward Vietnamese people.
According to hearing audio, due to the type of conviction, Lee's case would need to go before the full, seven-member parole board and with four of the seven members agreeing to his release.
It's unclear from documents how many board members voted for his release.
Anyone with information about crimes possibly involving Lee is asked to contact investigators at 303-627-3100.
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