Lawsuit: FBI extorted false confession

UPI
May. 29, 2007

HUNTINGTON, W.Va., May 25 (UPI) -- A former U.S. university student has sued the FBI, claiming that agents coerced her into confessing she killed another student on a trip to South Korea.

Kenzi Noris Elizabeth Snider was tried and acquitted in Seoul in 2003 on charges of killing Jamie Lynn Penich. Snider, of St. Cloud, Minn., a student at Marshall University in West Virginia, and Penich, a University of Pittsburgh student, were touring South Korea with other students in 2001.

In her lawsuit, Snider says the FBI was under political pressure to find a killer after Penich's parents sought help from U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette reported. She claims investigators became convinced that she had committed the crime after Penich made a sexual advance, despite evidence that Penich had been beaten by one or more men.

The suit names as defendants two FBI agents, Marc DiVittis and Seung Lee, and Army Criminal Investigation Agent Mark F. Mansfield.

Snider says the agents grilled her for three days in a hotel room in Huntington, W.Va., repeatedly suggesting to her that she might have killed Penich and repressed the memory of having done so.