Category: crime & punishment

The good old BAH scam that just never seems to go away:

A former Air Force noncommissioned officer has been charged by federal prosecutors with wire fraud, accusing him of proposing marriage to scores of women to bilk the Pentagon out of more than $100,000 in housing benefits.

D’Montre Green, a former Air Force staff sergeant, was charged June 16 in the alleged scheme that targeted at least 93 women, according to court documents filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Prosecutors said Green propositioned the women for marriage in April 2017 in an effort to boost his Basic Allowance for Housing stipend, which was set to decrease after his divorce one month earlier.

Green served in the Air Force from December 2011 until May 2022, according to prosecutors. He was stationed at Royal Air Force Lakenheath in the United Kingdom with the 48th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron when he began his spree of marriage proposals.

Green told the women in “text messages and mobile applications” that he would pay them part of his increased monthly BAH payment in exchange for a legal marriage, prosecutors said. Service members with dependents are entitled to higher housing stipends than single troopers. 

In one exchange, published in the court documents, Green compared such an arrangement to being a “sugar daddy,” but added sexual favors would not be part of the deal.

“So basically I would get paid extra from my job by having a spouse/dependent, which in return I’d be paying you [$]500 every month for the next [four] years or however long we agree if you’re interested,” Green wrote to one woman. “And no, I’m not expecting you to live with me or do any favors, just a title as a wife.”

One woman from Abilene, Texas, who was not identified by name in the court documents, agreed to marry Green in April 2017 “for the purpose of obtaining increased military benefits, including BAH, to which he would otherwise not be entitled.” Green and the woman were married by proxy, while Green was still in the U.K., according to prosecutors.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but what this idiot did was claim his fake wife lived in San Francisco, one of the highest areas for BAH. What these BAH fraudsters fail to realize is that any time you put a high income BAH location on your paperwork it will eventually get investigated. Sure enough Army investigators caught up this idiot. If he would have just put Abilene, Texas where his fake wife lived he would have likely never been caught.

This is really morbid:

The whereabouts of another unregistered baby is unknown, officials said Thursday, after two undocumented babies were found dead in a refrigerator, revealing serious problems with the country’s birth registration and child abuse prevention systems.

The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said it booked a woman in her 20s on charges of abandoning her baby. She claimed she gave away the baby to a stranger she got to know online a month after giving birth in December 2021, but police believe her statement is suspicious.

The incident is the second such case after a woman in her 30s was taken into custody Wednesday for killing two babies shortly after their births in 2018 and 2019, and storing their bodies in a fridge in her apartment in Suwon, just south of Seoul.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like this guy was trying to be a copy cat of the last wacko that tried this stunt on an Asiana Airlines flight a few weeks ago:

A passenger attempted to open the plane door during flight early Monday, the second such incident in less than a month after the shocking mid-air door opening accident on an Asiana Airlines flight. 

The door did not open in Monday’s incident, and no one was hurt. 

The unidentified passenger tried to force the door open on a Jeju Air flight that was on its way to Incheon from Cebu in the Philippines, according to the airline and online postings by passengers. 

The Boeing 737 plane, carrying about 180 passengers aboard, had departed from Cebu at 1:49 a.m. 

About an hour into the flight, the passenger began to act strange, complaining he felt pressure on his chest, according to Jeju Air. 

The flight crew offered to move him to a seat near the jump seats, but he continued his abnormal behavior and ran toward the exit to force the door open. 

The flight attendants and some other passengers subdued the passenger, three hours before landing, and the person was immediately handed over to the Incheon airport police afterward, Jeju Air said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This Marine got off pretty light with a two year suspended sentence considering what he did:

This screenshot from an All Nippon News report shows security camera footage from a car dealer in Iwakuni, Japan, Dec. 3, 2022. (ANN)

A Marine whose conduct a Japanese judge described as “bold, violent and vicious” received a two-year suspended sentence Friday for stealing a car, driving drunk and injuring two others in a collision.

Lance Cpl. Dominic Youngren pleaded guilty June 6 to illegal entry, theft, drunken driving and negligent driving in December. He was formally convicted and sentenced Friday by Judge Soshi Okada in Yamaguchi District Court in Iwakuni city.

Youngren, an F-35B Lightning II mechanic with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 242 at the air station, broke into an Iwakuni car dealership at 7:08 a.m. Dec. 3, according to a case summary of Okada’s remarks in court.

The Marine took a key to a car worth $38,000 and drove away in it at 7:57 a.m., drunk, according to the summary. These were “bold, violent and vicious” acts, the judge said.

After driving more than 2 ½ miles on city streets, Youngren rear-ended a car at a stop light, according to the summary. The other driver and a passenger suffered neck and back injuries that required 10 days of treatment. 

Youngren left the scene without reporting the accident, Okada said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but according to the article the Marine paid $1,400 in restitution to the car dealership, apologized, and promised to never drink again. That was enough to get his sentence suspended.

More corruption allegations against the prior Moon administration:

Presidential spokesman Lee Do-woon speaks to reporters in a briefing at the Yongsan presidential office in central Seoul on Wednesday. [NEWS1]

President Yoon Suk Yeol called for “a thorough investigation” of corruption allegations made against solar power projects under the previous government.  
   
The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) on Tuesday requested a probe on a total of 38 individuals, including government officials, over alleged corrupt acts, and the president ordered the Office of the Secretary for Civil Service Discipline to conduct “a thorough investigation on those who were involved in the decision-making process regarding renewables projects” under the former Moon Jae-in administration, said presidential spokesperson Lee Do-woon during a press briefing Wednesday. (…..)

Gunsan Mayor Kang was accused of providing preferential treatment to a local company whose CEO graduated from the same high school as the mayor.

The BAI also accused two former officials from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy of colluding with a private company for a 300-megawatt solar power plant project in Taean, South Chungcheong. The two former officials allegedly helped the company work around a regulation on land use through an authoritative interpretation without a legal basis. One of the officials was later named an executive of the company, and the other official was also hired as an executive of another solar company. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Considering this happened 59 years ago the fact this woman was punished for fighting back to excessively and injuring this rapist is not surprising to me. This is because back in 2004 a 19-year old U.S. Soldier was raped by a Korean taxi driver and the man was let go because she did not fight back enough. Fortunately Korea seems to be taking rape more seriously and hopefully this woman can get some justice after all these decades:

Choi Mal-ja, 77, is awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision on her request for a retrial of her sexual assault case nearly 60 years ago. This photo, taken May 2, shows Choi partaking in a press conference in front of the Supreme Court in southern Seoul that day. Choi was assaulted by a man in her hometown of Gimhae, South Gyeongsang, in 1964. She bit off his tongue in what she said was an act of self-defense. The court issued a stronger sentence on her than on the man. [NEWS1]

Choi Mal-ja, 77, is still expressing rage at the courts nearly six decades after she was sexually assaulted by a stranger.    
   
On May 6, 1964, Choi was an 18-year-old walking down a street in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang, when a man surnamed Roh, three years older and a complete stranger to her, asked her for directions on the road.  
   
Choi, trying to show him the way, walked a little with him, then in an alleyway, Roh suddenly turned and pushed her to the ground.   

She tried to fight back but he threw her to the ground, at least three times, according to her testimony in court.    
   
The next thing Choi knew, she was on the ground on her back and Roh was on top of her. He pinched her nose so that she had to open her mouth and was trying to forcibly kiss her.  
   
Choi bit hard, though she later told the court that she didn’t even know she was biting off the man’s tongue, before running away from him. (………)

The police, without the power to indict, passed over Choi’s case to the prosecution, asking them to indict Roh on the charges. But the prosecution dropped the charge of attempted rape and indicted Roh for trespassing and intimidation with weapons.    
   
Choi told the court that all the actions she took were out of self-defense. Still, the court handed down a stronger sentence on Choi, giving her a suspended sentence of 10 months for inflicting a serious physical injury to Roh.  
   
In contrast, Roh received a suspended sentence of only six months for trespassing and intimidation with weapons.    
   
Choi’s case has regained traction in recent years after she requested a retiral of her case. Her case was dubbed on social media a “59-year-old Me Too case.”  
   
Experts have said that the prosecution’s decision to drop the attempted rape charge on Roh may have made a difference in the final rulings, significantly weakening Choi’s case against Roh.    
   
The court at the time had said that Choi’s actions of self-defense were “excessive.”  
   
“Even if her action was that of a young woman to protect herself from forced kissing, her act of self-defense went so far as to cut off the tongue of the perpetrator and inflicted a lifelong injury that bars him from speaking,” said the court in its ruling. “Such defensive action was deemed, both generally and objectively, excessive compared to what the laws allow.”  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This woman is clearly pretty crazy:

Jung Yoo-jung, pictured here, is suspected of murdering another woman in her 20s at her home in Busan after pretending to be a high school student in need of tutoring. [NEWS1]

Police revealed the identity of the 23-year-old woman who said she murdered another woman in her 20s in Busan “out of curiosity” on Thursday.  
   
The suspect, named Jung Yoo-jung, was recently arrested for allegedly killing a woman in her 20s at her home in the Geumjeong District of Busan on May 26.   
   
She was caught by authorities after a cab driver who drove her to a riverside area of the Nakdong River reported her after she took the cab with a bloodied suitcase. The police found the victim’s body parts by the riverside area, and the rest of her remains at her home. 

The suspect, questioned by the police after her arrest, confessed she had planned the murder after her “curiosity was piqued from reading novels and watching TV programs on murder.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

Here is what expert thinks in regards to why Jung committed the murder:

As to why Jung killed a woman in her age group who was a stranger to her, Lee suspects that Jung admired and wanted to have what the victim had.  
   
“I think we can say that Jung wanted to have what the tutor had, such as her social status and academic background, and that is why she chose the victim,” Lee said, pointing out that Jung possessed the victim’s ID card even after dumping the dead body.  
   
The victim reportedly went to a prestigious university.  
   
Jung’s isolated and anti-social life is suspected to have influenced the killing.  
   
“It looks like Jung Yoo-jung’s psychopathy awakened while she was living an isolated life for a long time,” Bae Sang-hoon, a criminal profiler and a police administration professor at Woosuk University, told the JoongAng Ilbo.  
   
After finishing high school, Jung reportedly lived isolated for five years and has never been employed. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This is interesting, should a reporter be investigated after personal information about a public official is leaked to him? In Korea the answer is yes:

A police investigator shows his ID before protesting labor union members of MBC at the broadcasting network’s headquarters in western Seoul on May 30, 2023. (Yonhap)

Police attempted to raid the headquarters of MBC TV on Tuesday in connection with an investigation into the alleged leak of personal information of Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon, sparking a two-hour standoff with unionized reporters.

Investigators are looking into allegations that an MBC reporter, surnamed Lim, was involved in the leak of Han’s personal information, such as copies of the residence registration document and real estate contracts.

Unionized MBC workers blocked the investigators, holding banners denouncing the investigation as oppression of the press. They held banners reading “Turn back! It’s unfair control of broadcasting” or “The beginning of the Yoon Suk Yeol government’s oppression of MBC.”

With assistance from the company, police investigators succeeded in reaching Lim’s desk inside the building in western Seoul but decided not to execute a search warrant, concluding nothing was subject to seizure.

Earlier in the day, investigators from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency raided Lim’s home as well as the National Assembly Secretariat, and seized evidence, including Lim’s mobile phone.

The investigation began after a member of Seoul’s Gangseo Ward Council filed a complaint accusing a person of violating the Personal Information Protection Act after that person handed him information on Han and his family, which included copies of their residence registration document and real estate contracts.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I did not know it was that easy to open one of the airplane doors, hopefully something is done to where the doors are not so easy to open to prevent something like this from happening again:

A man in his 30s suspected of opening an emergency exit door mid-air on an Asiana Airlines plane appears at the Daegu District Court for questioning on May 28, 2023. The plane carrying 194 passengers landed safely, but some panicked passengers showed symptoms of breathing difficulties and were immediately taken to a hospital. (Yonhap)

A local court issued a warrant Sunday to arrest a passenger who opened an emergency exit door on board an Asiana Airlines flight right before landing in the southeastern city of Daegu last week.

The 33-year-old man, only identified by his surname Lee, was detained by police Friday on suspicions of opening the door 213 meters above ground just minutes before landing at Daegu International Airport in Daegu, 237 kilometers southeast of Seoul.

The Daegu District Court granted the request for an arrest warrant for alleged violation of the aviation security law, citing the seriousness of his case and the risk of flight.

Arriving at the court for questioning earlier in the day, the suspect said he was “very sorry to the kids” that were on the plane when asked by reporters whether he was aware of the danger of opening the door.

The man earlier told police officials that he had been under a lot of stress after losing his job recently and wanted to get out of the plane as he felt suffocated.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This guy obviously needs to be working in another industry other than being a caregiver to disabled people:

A convalescent hospital caregiver has been apprehended for inserting pieces of toilet mat into the anus of a disabled patient, police said Thursday.

The caregiver, known only as a 68-year-old man, is accused of inserting four toilet mat pieces into the anus of the 64-year-old Parkinson’s disease patient at a convalescent hospital in Incheon, 27 kilometers west of Seoul, on several occasions between late April and early May, police said.

The suspect charged with violating the disability welfare law reportedly told police that he committed the offense as the patient had watery stools and needed frequent diaper changes.

He is said to have cut the toilet mats into squares about 25 centimeters in width and in length and used them to wipe the patient’s body.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.