Police: Man who came to Indiana with plan to steal woman charged with attempted rape

A Florida college student came to Indiana during the weekend with a plan to “steal” a woman he had met online, take her home with him and force her to marry him.

His plan was derailed on the side of Interstate 65 in Johnson County, where an Indiana State Police trooper found him trying to rape the woman in the backseat of his car in broad daylight on Saturday, as she was screaming and fighting him, according to a probable cause affidavit charging the 19-year-old with attempted rape and other crimes.

Kung Bik Cem, of Tucker, Georgia, told the state trooper he had met the woman on Facebook, fallen in love with her, but she had become suddenly disinterested in him a week earlier. He came to Southport to find her at a family wedding she was attending, even though she had stopped answering his calls and text messages and didn’t want him there, court documents said.

Throughout Cem’s interviews with state police in the hours after the incident, he repeatedly explained his excitement about his plan to steal his future wife and justified his actions by explaining that in his culture, this action was allowed and customary, the affidavit said. He even demonstrated for police how he held her down in his vehicle and tried to scare her.

State police received a report of a disturbance on the side of southbound Interstate 65 between Whiteland and Franklin about 3:30 p.m. Saturday. The trooper walked up to the car, heard a woman screaming and saw that she was partially undressed, the affidavit said. The man’s pants were down, and his genitals were exposed. When the woman was able to get out of the car, she crumpled over on the side of the road crying, the documents said.

Cem is charged with attempted rape, criminal confinement and theft.