Category: crime & punishment

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.

I wonder if this guy was scammed into making some kind of large cash purchase of real estate by the group with the intent of robbing him?:

Six foreigners are on the run after stealing a bag of cash from Seoul Station earlier this month.

The bandits, from countries including Mexico and Colombia, stole 360 million won ($316,000) from a Korean man at a fast food restaurant at the train station in Jung-gu, on Aug. 2, according to Seoul Namdaemun Police on Monday.

Three men and three women were involved, of whom at least some had left Korea, police said.

They said the gang had waited for the victim at the station and followed him into the restaurant.

The man left his bag on a table and went to place an order with the cashier while a person with him kept an eye on the bag.

But gang members distracted him by dropping money on the floor. The others snatched the bag and fled.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see if any of these ex-aids of President Park were flipped to give evidence against her?  These sentences makes me think that if the prosecutors cannot get President Park on the Samsung corruption charges then maybe they will convict her for knowing about this “cultural blacklist” her aides were running:

A former top aide of ousted president Park Geun-hye was sentenced to three years in jail on Thursday for running a list of culture figures critical of the government that barred them from state support.

The Seoul Central District Court doled out the sentence to former presidential chief of staff Kim Ki-choon after finding him guilty of abuse of power and perjury.

But Cho Yoon-sun, who served as the culture minister under the Park administration, was acquitted of her charges related to the so-called cultural blacklist and was released from prison after the court gave her a one-year jail term suspended for two years. The court found her guilty only of lying before the parliament at a hearing on the blacklist scandal last year.

The special counsel team investigating the case demanded seven years in prison for Kim and six years for Cho in the final hearing on July 3.

Kim’s lawyers immediately vowed to appeal the ruling, calling it “unjust.”

The court also sentenced five other former ranking government officials to 18 months to two years in jail, with some on probation, for their involvement in creating and managing the blacklist.

Former culture minister Kim Jong-deok was sentenced to two years in prison, while former presidential education and culture senior secretary Kim Sang-ryul was handed an 18-month imprisonment. Former presidential culture and sports secretary Kim So-young was given 18 months in jail, suspended for two years.

Former vice culture minister Chung Kwan-joo and ex-presidential aide Shin Dong-churl were sentenced to one year and a half in jail each.

The artist blacklist is part of a massive corruption scandal that removed Park from office in March. Kim and Cho were indicted in February for masterminding the creation of a register of nearly 10,000 artists, writers and filmmakers deemed unfriendly to the conservative administration. Those on the list were denied state subsidies. The accused have maintained their innocence.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting in a few years to see if this new policy actually helps reduce the number of sex crimes or not?:

South Korean lawmakers have passed amendments to sex crime laws which will see those guilty of attempted rape and voyeurism subject to drug treatment, also known as chemical castration, in order to control their sexual impulses.

During the cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon held on Tuesday at the Government Complex in Seoul, the government deliberated and voted on a number of reforms related to the law concerning pharmacological treatment of violent sex crime offenders, meaning offenders committing crimes of attempted rape, voyeurism, and rape involving minor victims will all be subject to chemical castration.

In addition, those serving a prison sentence and court orders of pharmacological treatment in the last nine to six months will be able to appeal to a court to lift the orders after being examined by psychology professionals to assess the risks of recidivism.  [Korea Biz Wire]

You can read more at the link.

South Korea’s diplomatic corps faces yet another sexual assault allegation:

Korean Ambassador to Ethiopia Kim Moon-hwan is suspected of sexually abusing a female embassy staffer, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday.

It said Kim is also accused of sexually harassing several volunteers at Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), an aid organization under the ministry’s wing.

The ministry will send a team of internal inspectors to Ethiopia, Thursday, after investigating the cases on its own.

The revelation comes after a series of sexual offenses committed by diplomats over the past few years and a call for Kang Kyung-wha, the country’s first female foreign minister, to better protect the increased number of female officers.

The ministry said the victim testified against Kim during an internal inspection last week in Seoul of her superior who she said raped her after having a dinner and wine with her in Ethiopia, July 8.

“The victim testified that Kim sexually assaulted her, which she found very offensive, in addition to her statements about the case involving her superior,” a ministry official said.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This whole incident is very unfortunate, but it seems what happened was caused by Mr. Han being drunk and harassing Mr. Davis in the first place thus influencing the jury’s decision to acquit him:

A man accused of pushing a stranger to his death by shoving him on to the tracksof a subway has been acquitted of murder.

Naeem Davis, 34, was cleared on Monday of murdering Ki-Suck Han, 58, after he shoved him on to the tracks at the 49th Street station near Times Square in New York on December 3, 2012.

Mr Davis said he was defending himself when he pushed Mr Han off the platform. At least a minute passed before a train pulled into the platform and it Mr Han, killing him.

The scene was captured by a photographer for the New York Post, who controversially put a picture showing Mr Han on the tracks, seconds before his death, on its front page.

Mr Davis said that Mr Han, who was drunk at the time, had picked a fight with him after the pair bumped into each other accidentally near the subway turnstiles.

A court heard that Mr Han then followed Mr Davis down to the platform, shouting obscenities at him – including death threats – and grabbing his shoulder.

Considering in the past rapists would go free because victims did not resist enough, the fact this teacher received six years is surprising:

A high school teacher has been jailed for six years for sexually harassing a female student multiple times.

The Daegu High Court’s ruling on Sunday did not change the lower court sentence of the man, who is in his 50s, on charges of infringing laws on sexually protecting adolescents and teenagers.

The court heard that at about 7:20 p.m. last September the man called the student, who had recently broken up with her boyfriend, to a teachers’ office, saying he had advice on the matter.

The teacher asked her to take off her clothes, saying he would “personally check if she had had illicit experience with her boyfriend.”

The man told the girl to do this four times in one month, calling her to isolated places in the school.

The court said the victim “suffered extreme mental distress and embarrassment, which may disrupt her sexual security or socio-interactive understanding to be formed in future.”

However, the court took into account the man’s clean criminal record and the fact that he had admitted the offenses.  [Korea Times]