MI YUNG C. PARK: I wanted to be a lawyer since I was in the 9th grade. I went through some racism growing up, and that sense of injustice was in me. And I went to law school to really empower people who don't have a voice in society. And children are the most defenseless.
I'm a trial attorney with the Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section. We're a specialized unit that only prosecutes child exploitation cases. Everyone has the right to restitution. But the problem is, when a child's been raped or abused by someone, that's a lot of harm that has happened to the child. Quite frankly, it really can't be measured in numbers.
We can't just say to the court, "This harm is just so, so vast that, um, it's, you know, worth a million dollars, Your Honor." We actually have to give a cost. So what I've done that has been successful is to get restitution in the amount of future costs.
How much psychological help the child will need and how much this costs and this is how much money we're asking for. One victim, in a production of child pornography case, the court awarded 200-plus thousand as a restitution award.
What's difficult is getting the money. The defendant doesn't have money in the bank, but he had a 401K, and we were able to reach a stipulation with the defendant to give it to the victim. You just have to think outside the box.
The most rewarding part of the work that I'm doing here is fighting on behalf of justice for the crime that was committed against children. When you speak to the victim and they have this expectation of, "Wow, someone's going to help me," and the fact that you have actually said, "I represent the United States Government, and we believe what you're saying," that means a world to a victim.
