Category: crime & punishment

Via a reader tip comes this absolutely horrible assault of a 14-year old girl in Busan:

A horrific attack in South Korea’s Province of Busan has caused outrage around the globe after pictures of the victim were revealed online.

A group of middle school students attacked and nearly killed a 14-year-old girl in Busan, South Korea. The four attackers were captured on CCTV attacking the girl with a metal pipe, a chair, several soju bottles, and lit cigarettes. The girls then took pictures of the bloodied victim after the attack and sent it to other students to ‘brag’ about what they did.

While the victim was 14 years old, three of her attackers were of the same age as she was too. One of the attackers was only 13 years old. They attacked her for 1 hour and 30 minutes before leaving her to die.  [Viral 4 Real]

You can read the rest at the link, but this was actually the second time they assaulted her in response to the victim accepting a phone call from the boyfriend of one of the attackers.

What I learned from this article is that if you commit fraud under a religious pretext it is perfectly legal.  By the way who knew being a shaman could be so lucrative?:

A shaman who was taken to court on charges of fraud was ruled not guilty by the Seoul Southern District Court on Wednesday.

“Shamanism is, for the most part, aimed at gaining consolation and inner peace. Even if shamanistic rituals do not yield the promised outcome, it is difficult to hold the shaman accountable for the failure,” the court said.

The shaman in the case had blamed the spirits of the victim’s aborted twin babies for her husband’s flagging business and suggested the victim appease the spirit babies through special rituals.

The prosecution accused the shaman of fraud for carrying out an excessive number of rituals and charging over 560 million won ($499,000). The shaman provided 133 rituals in the period between January 2011 and December 2015. During the time, she sent mobile text messages to the alleged victim using baby talk as if she was possessed with the twins’ spirits.

The text messages read, “I know how you feel mommy. Please don’t feel sad. We love you,” “We ate loads of the meat you sent us. We love it very much.”  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest example of a senior military officer having a mid-life crisis:

An Air Force officer who engaged in an unprofessional relationship with an airman 20 years his junior while commanding a small expeditionary base in Africa will be forced out of the service following a general court-martial last week.

A military judge ruled late Friday that Lt. Col. Denis Paquette should be dismissed from the service, the equivalent of a dishonorable discharge for enlisted personnel. The dismissal means that Paquette, a C-17 pilot and married father with more than 18 years in the Air Force, won’t be eligible for retirement benefits.

Paquette chose to have his case decided by a military judge. He pleaded guilty to fraternization; violating a lawful general order on one occasion by drinking more than two alcoholic drinks at a deployed location in less than 24 hours; and to impeding an investigation.  [Stars & Stripes]

I recommend reading the whole thing at the link because this guy was running a base in Tunisa like a frat house while hitting on an 18-year old airman.  I recommend to people having a midlife crisis to buy the sports car instead because ruining a military career over something like this is not worth it.

I suspect it was more than playing golf that got his wife this upset to cut off his penis and flush it down the toilet:

A woman has been arrested on charges of cutting off her husband’s penis while he was sleeping, police said Monday.

According to Yeosu Police Station, the incident happened at an apartment in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, at 11:58 p.m. on Saturday.

The woman, 54, whose is unidentified, allegedly cut off the tip of the penis with a kitchen knife and flushed the flesh down the toilet.

A neighbor found the husband, left in pain, and took him to a nearby hospital, where he is in stable condition.

A police investigation revealed that the couple were on unhealthy terms.

Not only had the husband been violent to the woman, she had harbored a grudge because he gave her no money, but spent lavishly on his own enjoyment, such as like playing golf. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

I guess the moral to this story is that the teacher should have waited until the student was 13 which is just a creepy as having sex with a 12 year old:

A female teacher has been arrested for allegedly having sex with an elementary student.

According to police and South Gyeongsang Province education office, the teacher, 32, had sex with a male student, 12, in the classroom and her vehicle. They had sex several times between June and early August by what the teacher claimed was mutual consent, police said.

Having sex with a minor aged under 13 is punishable, even if it is consensual.

The case was reported to the police by the student’s parents, who found photos of the half-naked teacher on their son’s mobile phone.

They also found text messages from the teacher saying, “I love you,”and “I’ll buy you dumplings, come outside.”  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This couple will spend three years and six months in jail for what they did to this homeless girl:

A couple in their 20s has been jailed for forcing a homeless teenage girl into prostitution and sadistically punishing her when she refused.

Daegu District Court on Monday sentenced the couple to three years and six months jail on charges of forcing prostitution, intimidation and inflicting critical injuries.

The judges said the crime was “immoral and extremely grievous in its sadism,” causing the victim “indelible trauma.”

The court heard that the man, 25, and the woman, 21, met the girl in January after she ran away from home. They abused the girl for 16 days, forced her into prostitution 50 times and took the money she earned.

When the victim refused to offer sex services, the couple burned her with a cigarette and forced her to eat dog food mixed with their saliva.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This is definitely the stupid thing I read all day:

A court has fined a man, 73, who spread a false rumor online that Lee Hee-ho, widow of late former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, planned to marry American hip-hop musician Andre Romelle Young, better known as Dr. Dre.

Seoul Western District Court fined the man 5 million won ($4,400) on Friday on charges of cyber defamation and defamation against the deceased.  [Korea Times]

I don’t know what is stupider the fact that someone would actually believe Dr. Dre would marry Kim Dae-jung’s elderly widow or that fact the person who published the blog was fined $4,400 for posting it.

I think this conviction means that former President Park will likely get convicted as well for corruption:

A Seoul court sentenced Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong to five years in prison Friday, finding him guilty of bribery, embezzlement and other charges in a massive corruption scandal that led to the ouster of former President Park Geun-hye.

The Seoul Central District Court handed down the verdict, convicting Lee of involvement in Samsung’s provision of 7.2 billion won (US$6.38 million) in bribes for the equestrian training of the daughter of Park’s longtime friend and confidante Choi Soon-sil.

Prosecutors had demanded a 12-year jail term for Lee on charges of offering or pledging 43.3 billion won of bribes to win the government’s blessing for a merger of two Samsung units under terms designed to increase his control over the entire Samsung empire so as to cement a power transfer from his ailing father Lee Kun-hee.

“The crux of this case is close collusion between political and capital powers,” the court said in the verdict. “It appears to be difficult for the people to recover from disappointment in that collusive ties between the president and a large conglomerate existed not in the past, but in the present.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the article says that former President Park made demands to Lee that Samsung give money to Choi Soon-sil so her daughter could receive equestrian training.  Park is an idiot if that is in fact what happened.

Anyway it will be interesting to see how the appeals process works.  I would not be surprised that after this blows over that the appeal quietly happens and Lee receives a suspended sentence and is out of jail.

Condolences to the family of this Korean woman killed by this animal in Los Angeles:

An American gang member has been arrested for fatally shooting a Korean woman in Los Angeles.

The tragedy happened Aug. 8.

Devon White, 20, approached Oh Hye-soon, 67, who was leaving her business in Lynwood around 8:40 p.m. He allegedly tried to steal her belongings but the woman resisted, which led to a scuffle. White then shot her, according to reports. The man was caught on Aug. 17 and is being held at the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles.

Glendale Police Sgt. Robert William said Oh was found next to a car in the garage of an apartment complex. She had been shot once.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

I did not realize that oil theft was such a common crime in South Korea that the police regularly monitor the pipelines:

Police said Wednesday they have arrested two members of a six-man theft ring accused of having dug a 40-meter tunnel in South Korea’s central province of North Chungcheong for more than one month to pilfer oil from an underground pipeline.

The Iksan Police Station in southwestern South Korea also booked an accomplice and the owner of a gas station involved in the alleged distribution of stolen oil without physical detention.

The gang, including its leader surnamed Lee, met at a warehouse in the town of Okcheon in the province in March and began to dig the tunnel with shovels and hoes to access the supply pipeline of the state-run Daehan Oil Pipeline Corp.

After 45 days of digging, the thieves reached an underground oil pipeline and started to steal oil through a rubber hose they linked to the pipeline, according to the police. They loaded 10,000 to 20,000 liters of the stolen oil a day onto a truck remodeled into a tanker.

According to the police, the oil pilferers installed a CCTV near the tunnel to monitor for police crackdowns. In the last three months, they managed to steal 370,000 liters of oil worth 480 million won (about $423,300) from the pipeline.   [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link.