Edward Younghoon Shin Accused of Murdering Christopher Ryan Smith for Full Control of Sales Lead Generation Company They Co-Founded

In May 2010, Edward Younghoon Shin pleaded guilty in Riverside Superior Court to stealing sales leads as well as colleague Christopher Ryan Smith from LG Technologies, a company that generated sales leads before they formed a new concern, 800xchange.

Today, 33-year-old Irvine father of two Shin is being arraigned on charges of murdering Smith in their San Juan Capistrano offices to avoid paying $1 million he owed to buy Smith out of 800xchange.

And you thought the taxi cab business was cutthroat!

Orange County Sheriff’s Department investigators arrested Shin around 11 a.m. Sunday as he was sitting aboard a plane at Los Angeles International Airport bound for Canada. Currently being held without bail, he is charged with one felony count of special circumstances murder for financial gain and faces a sentence of life in state prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.

Smith
​Smith, also 33, had been in business with Shin at 800xchange for about two years before they had a falling out. A year ago, they reached a deal where Shin would pay $1 million for Smith’s half of the company. Orange County Sheriff’s homicide investigators say Shin killed Smith instead on June 4, 2010, and disposed of the body. Shin is also accused of going to great lengths to cover-up the crime, including painting over the spot in their San Juan Capistrano office where Smith was murdered to cover up blood stains. Shin is also alleged to have used a phony email account to delude Smith’s family into thinking he was on an extended vacation.

The lies ran out of steam, and Smith’s family in Laguna Beach hired a private investigator to find him. The city police department launched a missing persons investigation this past April. When “a significant amount of blood evidence” was found in San Juan Capistrano, Laguna Beach Police asked the Sheriff’s Department to take over the investigation, according to the sheriff’s department.

That probe produced allegations that Shin produced documents containing a false signature from Smith signing over his rights to the business. Smith’s car was discovered at some point in San Jose. His body has not been recovered. However, the investigation is ongoing, and anyone with information is urged to contact Supervising District Attorney Investigator Randy Litwin at 714.347.8492 or the OCSD Homicide Unit at 714.647.7048.

http://liarcatchers.com/wrongful_death.html 

​It’s easier to find Shin’s business bio online than Steven Jobs’. He claims to have “co-founded The 800 Exchange in order to provide clients with highly effective and inexpensive radio advertising. Working with clients in many diverse industries, Edward Shin and his colleagues at The 800 Exchange generate thousands of leads each day. Since its inception, The 800 Exchange has grown more than 1,000 percent, in part due to the expert leadership of Edward Shin.”

It continues that before founding 800xchange, he worked at Cambridge Funding, LLC, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley. He was publisher of Legends Sports Magazine, a “small boutique sports collectors magazine focused on highlighting careers of past legends and up and coming legendary athletes,” from October 2005 until selling the Hall of Fame Publishing Co. in February 2008.
He graduated from El Toro High School and then attended UC San Diego, where he studied political science and music performance. Shin’s MySpace page, which hadn’t been active for about three years, indicated he was married with two young children, a boy and a girl. In fact, the title of the page is not his name but Sophia & Adam’s Daddy.

He lists his occupation as “Media Monster” and favorite television show as Entourage, noting “I have my own Drama and Turtle but no E, I guess b/c that’s me.”

The lawsuit filed in Riverside accused Shin of fraud, stealing and diverting of leads. LeadCritic.com called it “the largest lead generation scandal in history.” Not only did LG Technologies name Shin and Smith as defendants, but the company also went after Shin’s wife, Karen Shin, as well as Iris Sunwoo of competitor LeadPoint Inc. and Marc Diana of Breakwater Ventures and Breakwater Ventures II.

Courtesy of Orange County District Attorney’s Office
Edward Younghoon Shin’s latest booking photo.
​Edward Shin was hired as vice president of Business Development at LG Technologies and then forming competitor LeadPoint, which would secretly receive sales leads diverted from LG and sell them back to LG clients. Shin hired Smith at LG and got him hired at LeadPoint, so his future 800xchange partner was working for one company and its competitor at the same time. According to the complaint, Shin paid Smith $13,000 to $14,000 per month at LeadPoint.

Shin originally pleaded not guilty to embezzlement, claiming he did nothing wrong and there was no conflict of interest, but then he suddenly changed his plea to guilty. He was ordered to pay back LG Technologies for everything he stole and serve three years probation. Charges against the other defendants, including Smith, were later dropped after an undisclosed settlement was reached.

Of course, it’s a huge leap from lead-generation theft to murder. But if Shin’s planning a defense based on this all being a misunderstanding, he drew the wrong prosecutor. Veteran Homicide Unit Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy never loses a case.

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