If half of the corruption allegations against former President Lee Myung-bak are true, then it looks like he may be in some serious trouble:
Lee Myung-bak
Troubled shipbuilder Sungdong Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering was the source of bribes former President Lee Myung-bak allegedly accepted from a banker, sources from the prosecution said Friday.
Lee, who was in office from 2008 to 2013, is being investigated over various corruption accusations. Of the 20 charges he is facing, one is an allegation that he had accepted a total of 2.25 billion won ($2.12 million) from Lee Pal-sung, then-chairman of Woori Financial Group, from 2007 until 2011. The banker allegedly paid the money to keep his job during Lee’s presidency.
According to prosecution sources, a memo was found in Lee Pal-sung’s home during a raid last month. It detailed his payments to Lee’s family, including the former president’s son-in-law.
The money came from Sungdong Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, which was in serious financial trouble at the time, the prosecution sources said. The midsize shipbuilder was established in 2003 but its financial situation deteriorated in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial meltdown. Up to now, the firm received 9.3 trillion won in bailouts, but has not been turned around. The government decided earlier this month to let the company file for court receivership.
Lawyers of the former president said Friday that Lee told the prosecution during questioning earlier this week that he had no knowledge of the bribery.
The JoongAng Ilbo reported Friday that the prosecution has secured testimony from a former CEO of auto component maker DAS that former President Lee accepted large amounts of secret funds from the company for years.
According to sources from the legal community, the prosecution suspects that Lee had took about 3.5 billion won from DAS. The auto parts maker is technically owned by Lee’s elder brother, but prosecutors believe that Lee is the actual owner. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
In addition to being an odd story, I am some what surprised he actually received 7 years in jail for rape:
A Korean man was sentenced to seven years in prison for raping the sister of his Filipino wife. The man, 39, surnamed Jeon, was also ordered to receive 120 hours of sex-crime prevention education.
An appellate court in Gwangju handed down the ruling on Wednesday, overturning a lower court’s acquittal.
“The accused raped his sister-in-law who came from the Philippines to attend his wedding ceremony. It’s really a bad crime,” wrote Judge Lee Jae-kwon in a ruling statement. “The victim experienced a great deal of humiliation, shame and mental shock, which caused serious depression, stress-driven emotional disorder and chronic insomnia.”
According to court documents, the incident happened on Feb. 15 last year, three days before the wedding ceremony. The groom-to-be raped his sister-in-law after they went out together to buy gifts for wedding guests.
A lower court acquitted him based on circumstantial and tangible evidence, with which it presumed the two to be in a romantic relationship. [Korea Times]
Condolences to this man’s family after he was randomly murdered by someone with a long criminal history and yet is still not in jail. This attack at least should lock him up for a long time:
A Korean man has died after a mysterious street attack in Waikiki, Hawaii, local media reported.
Kim Pil-sung, 29, lost consciousness after allegedly being punched and kicked by Cesarin Perez, 34, outside a bar early on Feb. 20. Kim was taken to a hospital but died on March 1.
Perez was caught Thursday and charged on suspicion of second-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter. His bail is $500,000.
Why Perez allegedly attacked Kim is unclear because there were no specific ties between the two. The suspect had been convicted multiple times of prostitution and drug use charges, among others, according to local media.
An autopsy determined Kim died from injuries to his brain from blunt-force trauma. [Korea Times]
Here may be the beginnings of yet another nude photo scandal for the Pentagon:
A Dropbox folder containing hundreds of explicit photos of female U.S. service members is currently circulating online, VICE News has learned. The women in the photos, some topless, others entirely nude, are largely identifiable and appear to be from all branches of the U.S military.
The folder is the latest example of an ongoing problem with revenge porn and online harassment in the U.S. military, one that persists even a year after the revelation of thousands of nude photos of service members shared in a Facebook group called Marines United caused a major scandal. VICE News reported in February on the existence of dozens of informal military social media groups where members continue to share nude photos and make derogatory comments about women, often alongside more banal posts about military life.
The new Dropbox folder, called “Hoes Hoin’,” contains 267 images in all and three subfolders named for specific women. Some photos show the women’s faces, others show their dog tags, others show their uniforms and name tags. The vast majority of the photos feature military clothing.
Some of the photos are selfies, others are clearly taken by another person. Some show women performing sexual acts. A few are of service members fully clothed, in apparent attempt to shame or discredit them. Finally, some photos are crude collages showing a fully clothed service member in uniform on one side and a nude photo of the same woman on the other. [Vice News]
You can read more at the link, but according to the article many of the pictures are from the original Marines United webpage. What is not known if the people posting these pictures are even in the military. This may end up being a civilian law enforcement issue if the posters are non or ex-military. Regardless it is disgusting that people continue to do this.
Here is a strange sexual assault story involving a Japanese woman running a boarding house in Hawaii:
A Manoa woman who recruited exchange students from Japan raped one of her clients as many as 10 times while he was bedridden with an injury, police allege in court documents.
Police said she also threatened the victim, a 16-year-old Japanese national, if he went to authorities, saying she’d accuse him of rape if he reported her.
The suspect has been identified as 36-year-old Rika Shimizu.
She’s been indicted on five counts of second-degree sex assault and four counts of fourth-degree sex assault. She remains in custody on $600,000 bail. [Hawaii News Now]
Allegedly an English teacher was behaving badly in Cheongju:
Amid the spreading #MeToo movement, a native English-speaking teacher at a girls’ high school was recently fired over allegations of sexually molesting students and calling the East Sea the “Japan Sea.” It was the victimized students who told the school of his misbehavior.
According to Yonhap News, the instructor, who worked at the school in Cheongju, was booked without physical detention on suspicion of sexually molesting students. The school also terminated his contract.
The former instructor is from Western Europe and worked at the school for seven years.
The school became aware of his misbehavior in May last year and asked police to investigate.
The school confronted him with its findings and he admitted making unwanted physical contact with the students, and racial and sexually offensive remarks. [Korea Times]
Here is his most shocking crime:
He also allegedly told the students that Korea and Japan should share Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo rather than fighting over them.
He should be exiled to live out his life on Dokdo after making a statement like that! 😉
It will be interesting to see what President Moon has to say about this considering that An Hee-jung was looked at as a possible successor to Moon in the next Presidential election:
An Hee-jung
South Chungcheong Province Governor An Hee-jung has been accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting his secretary over the past eight months.
During a TV interview on JTBC, a local cable channel, Monday, Kim Ji-eun who has served as An’s secretary since June, claimed that the 54-year-old assaulted her four times and frequently sexually harassed her.
He has reportedly admitted to having sexual relations with her, but insists they were consensual.
Kim said she will file a complaint with the prosecution Tuesday.
The shocking news of his behavior could bring about the end of his political career regardless of the nature of their relationship. An was regarded as one of the strongest hopefuls for the country’s next president.
“Our sexual relations were not consensual, and I’m sure he knows it,” Kim said. “I was not in a position where I could say no.”
She said there was no one that could help her.
The accusation comes amid the spread of the #MeToo movement here, which was triggered by female prosecutor Seo Ji-hyun in January.
“After the issue about the movement came into the spotlight, An appeared to be anxious,” Kim said. “On Feb. 25, he called me into his office and apologized. But then, he did it again … I thought I would never be able to get away from him at that time.” [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I would not be surprised if this is something An has been doing for years and Kim Ji-eun just happens to be the first person to speak out against him.
Kim Ji-eun speaks out during an interview on JTBC on Monday. / Captured from JTBC
South Korea’s infamous “molar daddy” has been rightfully given the death penalty after raping and killing a 14-year old girl:
Lee Young-hak
A Seoul court on Wednesday meted out a death sentence for a man charged with killing a school friend of his daughter after sexually molesting her.
The Seoul Northern District Court handed down the gravest possible punishment on Lee Young-hak, 36, who had confessed to choking a 14-year-old girl to death in his home last September after committing lewd acts on her body while she was drugged.
Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty.
The court sentenced his daughter, whose identity was not revealed, to four years in prison for luring the friend to the house and helping her father dump her body. But her sentence can be extended up to six years in case of an infraction during her four-year imprisonment. [Korea Times]
A man received two years behind bars for going to massage parlor ― among other crimes ― leaving his five-year-old son alone in a car.
Chunchon High Court confirmed a lower court sentence for the man, 60, Monday, for child abuse and endangerment.
Court records showed the man had a fight with his wife who demanded child support and left the scene, telling her that she wouldn’t see them. He also attacked his wife with blunt objects.
He took their second son, a five-year-old away in a car, after his older nine-year-old escaped, as he drove away.
The man stopped at a massage parlor in his neighborhood and left the son locked in the car.
Police found the car and the child inside after the wife called them to report the incident.
The child was locked inside the car for nearly two hours. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but the man says he went to the massage parlor to calm himself down after fighting with this wife.
The only conviction to stick to Lee Jae-yong was sponsoring equestrian training for Choi Soon-sil’s daughter:
The photo shows Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong smiling as he comes out of a courtroom at the Seoul High Court on Feb. 5, 2018, after he was released on a suspended sentence over bribery in connection with a corruption scandal involving former President Park Geun-hye. (Yonhap)
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was released Monday after an appellate court handed him a suspended sentence dismissing most of the key charges against him in a bribery and corruption scandal that led to the ouster of former President Park Geun-hye last year.
The Seoul High Court sentenced Lee to 2 1/2 years in prison with a stay of execution for four years. He was immediately freed from a nearly yearlong incarceration.
Two former group executives were also released on suspended sentences. They were given four-year jail terms by the lower court.
Lee, 50, was arrested on Feb. 17, 2017 on five charges, including bribery, embezzlement and hiding assets overseas.
A lower court sentenced him to five years in prison, on Aug. 25, for giving 8.8 billion won (US$8.1 million) in bribes to Park and her confidante, Choi Soon-sil, in return for government backing of the merger of two key Samsung units, a process that was deemed vital to tighten Lee’s control of South Korea’s biggest conglomerate. The prosecution had demanded 12 years in prison for Lee.
But the appeals court acknowledged as bribes only some 3.6 billion won which Samsung sent to Choi’s German-based firm to sponsor the equestrian training of her daughter, Chung Yoo-ra.
The court found Lee “passively” complied with Park’s request to sponsor the former dressage rider after he was apparently intimidated by Park and Choi. [Yonhap]
Here is the strangest thing about the court ruling:
But the appeals court acknowledged as bribes only some 3.6 billion won which Samsung sent to Choi’s German-based firm to sponsor the equestrian training of her daughter, Chung Yoo-ra.
The court found Lee “passively” complied with Park’s request to sponsor the former dressage rider after he was apparently intimidated by Park and Choi.
What did former President Park tell him that was so intimidating that is what I want to know?
