A number of readers have written in to ask if this 71-year-old defendant is the same Tongsun Park who figured prominently in the 1970s congressional bribery scandal known as Koreagate.

Yep, it's him. This is the same Tongsun Park who in 1977 was indicted in a U.S. District Court on 36 counts. As detailed in a 1980 book by Robert Boettcher with Gordon Freeman, "Gifts of Deceit: Sun Myung Moon, Tongsun Park and the Korean Scandal," these included conspiracy for a political payoff scheme, "bribery, illegal campaign contributions, mail fraud, racketeering, and failure to register as an agent of the KCIA" (KCIA being the Korean Central Intelligence Agency). Park was outside the U.S. when the indictment was issued, and after some negotiation, finally came back to testify in exchange for immunity.

In the current trial, in which Park is charged with laundering money and acting as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the jury has heard nothing of Koreagate. All mention of it has been scrupulously avoided, lest it prejudice the case.