Category: crime & punishment

Here is the latest on the case of Olympic champion Shim Suk-hee being sexually assaulted by her coach:

South Korean double Olympic champion skater Shim Suk-hee is seeking a heavier sentence for her former coach, her lawyer said Friday, after he was jailed for more than a decade for sexually assaulting her over several years.

The development came as a former physical therapist was imprisoned for eight years in a separate case for sexually and physically abusing a female triathlete who took her own life.

Short track skater Shim — one of the country’s top female sports stars — went public in 2019 with accusations that coach Cho Jae-beom had sexually abused her for three years, starting when she was 17.

Her action confronted a culture of shame in the socially conservative nation and prompted a series of athletes to come forward with similar allegations, leading to apologies from sporting authorities.

Cho was convicted and sentenced to 10 and a half years in jail by the Suwon District Court on Thursday, but Shim’s lawyer said they will ask the court to impose a longer term.

AFP

You can read more at the link.

It is not surprising that this guy had a mental disorder that led to the subway confrontation:

A 50-something man was sentenced to 20 months in prison on Friday for getting into a “slipper fight” with subway passengers who asked him to wear a face mask due to the coronavirus.

The man was indicted on charges of assaulting two passengers on a Line 2 subway train. During the incident in August, he choked the passengers and slapped their faces with a slipper he was wearing.

“The defendant was not wearing a mask even though it was essential due to COVID-19 and talked in a loud voice on the train before assaulting the passengers,” Judge Lee Sang-hoon of the Seoul Southern District Court said.

“However, we took into consideration the fact that his mental illness appeared to have contributed to the crime,” he said.

Yonhap

There had to be more than just the Malaysian employee involved with this heist of money from this casino on Jeju Island. What did she do wheel out 300 kilogram of money on a dolly through the casino?:

A stash of W8.1 billion has been found in a secret safe at the Landing Casino in the Shinhwa World Marriott Resort on Jeju Island, where billions have gone missing (US$1=W1,097).

Police said Wednesday that the new stash was found in a safe in a secret vault in the casino from where another W14.5 billion in cash had vanished without a trace. 

The secret vault is not the casino’s ordinary safe where chips and gambling money are stored, but a 50 sq.m space containing dozens of safes of different sizes. 

Police discovered the new stash of money while raiding the secret vault after the casino filed a report accusing a female Malaysian executive of making off with the W14.5 billion in crisp W50,000 notes that would have weighed nearly 300 kg.

The 55-year-old woman disappeared last December and is suspected of absconding with the money on behalf of her boss, the troubled Hong Kong-based chairman of Landing International, Yang Zhihui.

Chosun Ilbo

You can read more at the link. but this money could still be stashed around Jeju with some of it already being found by police.

It is pretty horrible that someone would abuse a 16 month old child to death:

The horrific death of a 16-month-old allegedly abused by her adoptive parents has triggered an outpouring of grief nationwide and anger over many missed chances to save her.

The girl, named Jung-in, died at a hospital in western Seoul on Oct. 13, hours after she was taken to the hospital by her adoptive mother.

The National Forensic Service concluded that she died of severe abdominal injuries and internal bleeding that were caused by “strong external force applied on her back.” Signs of prolonged abuse, such as fractured bones and bruises, were also found on her once-healthy body.

Last month, prosecutors charged the adoptive mother, surnamed Jang, with child abuse resulting in death, emotional abuse and neglect. She has been in pretrial detention. The adoptive father was charged with child abuse and neglect.

Jung-in’s case has gained renewed national attention after SBS, a local broadcaster, aired an investigative report over the weekend to reveal the utter brutality of the abuse done to the toddler, and how child welfare agencies and police have squandered golden chances that could have saved her life.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this was one of those classic cases of all the warning signs being there, but authorities were not willing to do anything about it.

This is part of the reason why the Moon administration has been going after Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl because he had his prosecutors investigate this corruption:

Former Justice Minister Cho Kuk’s wife was sentenced by a Seoul court on Wednesday to imprisonment of four years for academic fraud.

The Seoul Central District Court handed down the jail sentence, together with a fine of 500 million won (US$451,000), to Chung Kyung-sim, the wife of the former presidential secretary for civil affairs and a close aide to President Moon Jae-in.

The court also ordered the immediate imprisonment of Chung.

Chung was indicted in November last year on 15 counts of charges related to her daughter’s college admission and her dubious investment in a private equity fund (PEF).

Chung is accused of being involved in fabricating documentation from 2013-2014, including a college presidential citation, in order to get her daughter admitted to medical school.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I doubt that she will do four years in jail. She will get her sentenced reduced probably on appeal as things tend to happen. Her husband Cho Kuk is still under investigation for his role in these corrupt dealings.

Another member of the Moon administration gets away with committing a crime:

 Police are looking into past cases that are similar to the new vice justice minister’s unpunished assault against a taxi driver to determine whether officers took appropriate steps at the time of the incident, a police official said Monday.

Vice Justice Minister Lee Yong-gu has come under fire after it was reported late last week that he got away free following the altercation in early November. 

Lee, who was a lawyer at the time, allegedly grabbed the driver by the collar in an intoxicated state when the man tried to wake him up after arriving at his home in southern Seoul. He was appointed vice minister on Dec. 2. 

“We will once again thoroughly review legal precedents with the help of former jurists, lawyers and senior officials who handled the case at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency,” the official said.

The Seocho Police Station, which has jurisdiction over Lee’s neighborhood, applied charges of assault, a crime not punishable against will, not the heavier charges that apply to assault against a driver in motion.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but can you imagine the reaction if it was a drunk USFK service member that assaulted a cab driver

Yet former President Park was confined before her trial for something far less serious than what this mayor is accused of and in the case of the sexual assault already admitted to doing:

Oh, who was elected in 2018 as a member of the ruling Democratic Party, stepped down as Busan mayor in April after admitting during a live press conference he had sexually assaulted a City Hall employee in his office.  
   
Earlier this week, prosecutors filed a second arrest warrant for Oh after the first request was turned down in June. Prosecutors said they had found new evidence Oh had inappropriate contact with another woman by touching her chin, and attempting to touch other areas of her body on multiple occasions in November and December 2018.    
   
Oh admitted in April to the sexual assault that led to his resignation. At his court hearing Friday, he admitted to the additional assaults, saying “the words of the women are all correct.” The ex-mayor added he did not remember the incidents, but that he apologizes for them.  
   
The presiding judge of the Busan District Court who reviewed Oh’s warrant hearing said there was no reason to put him under pretrial detention as he has accepted the charges and does not pose a flight risk. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but this is why the Moon administration had to suspend the Prosecutor General, to assist his political cronies.

All this guy received was an apology after being locked up for 20 years as an innocent man:

A South Korean man, who was imprisoned for 20 years after being wrongfully convicted of raping and killing a 13-year-old girl in 1988, was acquitted of the crime in a retrial Thursday.

The Suwon District Court in Suwon, south of Seoul, overturned the original conviction of Yoon Seong-yeo, a 53-year-old, and declared him not guilty in a retrial of the 1988 murder case linked to one of the nation’s most notorious serial killings.

The court offered an apology to Yoon on behalf of the judiciary, saying the incorrect ruling of the past was made due to wrongful acts by investigation agencies.

Yoon’s case was classified as the eighth case of 10 serial murders that had occurred between 1986 and 1991 in Hwaseong, a Gyeonggi Province city about 60 kilometers south of Seoul.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

ROK Heads may remember that this guy is a notorious career criminal who used the “I was drunk” defense to have his sentence reduced:

Cho Doo-soon, one of South Korea’s most notorious child rapists in recent memory, was released from prison on Saturday amid strong protests against the heinous criminal’s return to society. 

Cho served a 12-year term for kidnapping and raping an 8-year-old girl in a church bathroom in Ansan, 42 kilometers southwest of Seoul, in December 2008. A huge public outcry has erupted over what has been seen as too lenient a punishment for a horrendous sexual crime against a minor.

He left the correctional facility in southern Seoul early Saturday and returned to his home in Ansan, south of the capital, escorted by probation officers. 

Some of about 150 angry protesters, who waited for his appearance near his residence, threw eggs at Cho when he arrived and shouted slogans calling for him to be executed or expelled from the city.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Horrible story where the mother received little punishment for killing a newborn:

An unregistered Thai woman was given a suspended prison sentence for neglecting her newborn baby, resulting in death, according to a local court, Thursday. 

The Seoul Eastern District Court sentenced the 37-year-old woman to a two-year prison term suspended for three years for the crime of abandonment of an infant resulting in death.

The woman delivered the baby at around 8 p.m., Mar. 29, in Gwanak District, Seoul, alone without medical assistance. The baby died around two hours later as she neglected the infant without giving it sufficient care including failing to clear amniotic fluid from the baby’s nose and mouth. 

It was found during the police investigation that she had been staying in the country illegally, and therefore did not contact the police nor take the baby to the emergency room, out of concern that her illegal stay would be revealed. 

Regarding the baby’s father, the accused stated that she had become pregnant with one of her clients at a massage shop where she was working. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.