Category: crime & punishment

This criminal case is just totally bizarre, basically some woman keeps getting pregnant by some foreign guy and keeps convincing her Korean husband the kid is his. This guy appears to be the ultimate simp:

A Korean couple who abandoned two infants nearly two decades ago because they “looked like foreigners” received suspended prison sentences, according to legal circles Sunday.

The Uijeongbu District Court sentenced the mother to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years, for violating the Child Welfare Act. Her husband was sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for three years, for the same charge.

According to the court, the woman gave birth to her first child in 2005 while living with the man in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province.

The man, who believed throughout the pregnancy that he was the child’s biological father, realized after the birth that the baby was biracial. Concluding the child was not his, he decided to abandon the infant, and the mother complied.

The couple left the newborn on the doorstep of an orphanage in northern Gyeonggi Province less than a month after the birth.

The two reunited in 2008. The woman was pregnant with another child fathered by a foreign man, but the man once again believed he was the biological father.

After the couple legally married, the woman gave birth in a makeshift shed on a farm owned by the man’s parents. They raised the child for about a year.

As the child grew older, however, the man again realized the child was not biologically his.

Fearing confrontation, the woman fled in March 2009, leaving the child behind. The man subsequently abandoned the second child at the doorstep of the same orphanage.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

This conviction makes me wonder if anyone has ever been convicted before for receiving a free opinion poll?:

This file composite photo shows former President Yoon Suk Yeol (L) and self-proclaimed power broker Myung Tae-kyun. (Yonhap)

A Seoul district court on Monday sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to two years in prison after finding him partially guilty of accepting illegal political funds in the form of free opinion polls from a self-proclaimed power broker.

The Seoul Central District Court convicted the jailed former president on charges of violating the Political Funds Act in a ruling that marked a departure from a separate trial where his wife was acquitted on the same charges.

Special counsel Min Joong-ki’s team earlier indicted Yoon on charges of colluding with his wife, former first lady Kim Keon Hee, and receiving 58 opinion polls worth about 270 million won (US$180,100) in total for free from the power broker, Myung Tae-kyun, between April 2021 and March 2022.

In its ruling, the court recognized that Yoon had received 14 opinion polls from Myung for free over the period, sentencing him to prison and ordering a forfeiture of 13.96 million won.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is a horrible murder and cover up that has put the ruling party’s attempt to take investigation powers away from prosecutors at risk:

Acting National Police Agency Commissioner Yoo Jae-seong sits down for a meeting at the agency’s office in Seodaemun District, Seoul, Friday. Yonhap

The murder of a high school student in Gwangjuand an alleged cover-up attempt by police have abruptly disrupted a policy push to strip prosecutors of all remaining investigative powers. The killing by Jang Yoon-gi, son of a police officer, has raised the question of whether Korea should press ahead with institutionalizing unchecked police power at the very moment its dangers have been laid bare.

A special investigation team under the National Police Agency probing the alleged misconduct in the investigation of the murder case visited the office of the Gwangju Metropolitan Police’s commissioner and other top command posts to collect evidence, expanding its inquiry to the police leadership.

This came after investigators named the chief of Gwangsan Police Station in the city, the leader of the violent crimes team and his members as criminal suspects. The team leader was arrested last week on charges including leaking official secrets and destroying evidence. Investigators are also probing Jang’s father — himself suspected of destroying key evidence — on suspicion of colluding with the local police investigation team.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

As I have long said the only way Yoon is getting out of jail is if another conservative becomes President and pardons him:

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a seven-year prison term for former President Yoon Suk Yeol for obstructing justice by blocking investigators from detaining him in the wake of his failed martial law bid in 2024.

The sentence was the top court’s first ruling for Yoon, who has been standing a total of eight trials in connection with his surprise declaration of martial law on Dec. 3, 2024. The main trial on charges of leading an insurrection has been ongoing at an appellate court after a lower court sentenced him to life in prison.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is something to keep in mind that freedom of speech in the U.S. does not apply in South Korea. If you say something in the U.S. it can be used to arrest you if you travel to South Korea:

Police plan to question Korean American professor Morse Tan this week over his alleged defamation of President Lee Jae Myung, sources said Tuesday.

The questioning will take place at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency at 10 a.m. Wednesday over allegations that the professor at U.S.-based Liberty University falsely accused Lee of involvement in murder as a teenager.

Tan allegedly made the claim at a press conference in the United States last year. He also claimed Lee had been sent to a juvenile detention center for the crime.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Considering that they made multiple trips to South Korea to film U.S. and Korean airbases it seems to me that Chinese intelligence was hoping to use high school student in an effort to avoid detection. It worked until a local resident finally noticed them and called police:

Two Chinese nationals were sentenced to prison Thursday for illegally filming fighter jets at several South Korean and U.S. military facilities and attempting to intercept traffic control communications.

The Suwon District Court sentenced an 18-year-old Chinese high school student to an indeterminate prison term of 1 1/2 to two years and a 20-year-old Chinese man to two years in prison, both for general treason. An indeterminate sentence is applied to minors under the juvenile law.

It is the first time in South Korea that a foreigner has been found guilty of general treason under the Criminal Act.

The court also ordered the confiscation of their cameras and other items used in the crime.

The two were arrested and indicted for taking hundreds of detailed photos of fighter jets taking off and landing at major air bases nationwide during multiple visits to South Korea between the second half of 2024 and March last year, when both were high school students.

They were found to have visited four South Korean and U.S. military facilities in Suwon, Osan, Pyeongtaek and Cheongju, as well as three major international airports — Incheon, Gimpo and Jeju. They were caught by police in March last year after a resident reported them for illegally filming fighter jets taking off and landing at Suwon Air Base.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

In Korea it can be illegal to operate a porn site as these people have just found out:

Korean police arrested 15 people linked to an online pornography site with more than 6,000 members, accusing its operators and users of distributing hundreds of sexually explicit photos and videos, police said Friday.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s cyber investigation unit said it booked eight operators of the site, called Honors Club, on charges of distributing obscene materials in violation of the Information and Communications Network Act. Seven site members were also arrested on the same charge. (……)

The operators are accused of running the site from January 2022 through April 2026 and uploading or allowing the distribution of about 700 explicit photos and videos, including footage of group sexual activity among members, according to police.

The site presented itself as a community for married couples and partners seeking open relationships. However, police said its operators used the platform to circulate sexually explicit content and recruit members through multiple online channels, including a Daum cafe, Telegram channels and chat rooms, and an account on X.

The site had 6,325 members, while related online groups drew 2,361 members on Daum cafe, 736 users on a Telegram channel, 944 participants in a Telegram chat room and 6,214 followers on X, police said.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

I will be surprised if the Japanese court believes this defense. If this holds up every rapist will be claiming they were sleepwalking to justify their crimes:

A U.S. Marine accused of sexually assaulting a Japanese woman and injuring another will rely on a defense of insanity due to a sleep disorder when his case comes to trial in June, his attorney said Wednesday. Pfc. Austin Wedington, 28, of California, should not be held responsible for an incident prosecutors allege occurred on March 18, 2025, according to a Feb. 12 filing by attorney Tetsu Amakata in Naha District Court.

Amakata’s pleading was partially read in court by Presiding Judge Tomohiko Shinomiya on Wednesday. The defendant was showing symptoms of parasomnia and was in a state of insanity during every act he is accused of in the indictment, according to Amakata’s filing. Parasomnia is an umbrella term for disruptive sleep disorders that include sleepwalking, sleep terrors, sleep talking and sleep paralysis, according to the National Library of Medicine.

Article 39 of Japan’s penal code states that “actions due to insanity are not subject to punishment.” Wedington pleaded not guilty Nov. 18 to forcible sexual intercourse and guilty to injuring the second woman before a three-judge panel presided over by Judge Kazuhiko Obata.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.