This appears to be the testimony that prosecutors have been spending all these months trying to get out of Chung Yoo-ra:
Chung Yoo-ra makes her unexpected appearance at the Seoul Central District Court on Wednesday as a witness in a trial for Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong. [YONHAP]Chung made a bombshell revelation on Wednesday on the details of Samsung’s support for her training. Samsung provided her three expensive horses, Salcido, Vitana V and Rausing 1233 in 2015 and 2016. Choi swapped Salcido and Vitana V with Vladimir and Stasha in September, as the first media reports about the scandal began. The independent counsel argued that the trade of the horses was intended to cover up Samsung’s tie to Choi.
Chung testified that Samsung must have known about her mother’s trading of the horses. “I telephoned my equestrian coach, Christian Kamplade, in June and asked him about it,” she said. “He told me that my mother, [former Samsung Electronics president] Park Sang-jin and [former executive director] Hwang Sung-soo met in Copenhagen, Denmark, the day before trading the horses.”
She also said she has an audio recording of the conservation and that a broker for the deal also complained to her in English, “Samsung needs to pay me,” referring to delayed payments.
After the independent counsel discussed Samsung’s claim that Choi unilaterally made a decision to trade the horses without the company’s knowledge or approval, Chung said, “My mother told me that Samsung ordered to change the horses. It makes no sense that they were not aware of it.”
She added, “My mother told me that things will get noisy if word gets out Samsung is supporting just me before other athletes join the program.”
Lawyers representing Lee said Chung was only 18 years old when the deals were signed and she was not involved in the negotiations. Chung probably gave a testimony wanted by the independent counsel in order to avoid another warrant hearing, the lawyers said. The prosecution made two attempts to detain Chung, but both requests were rejected by a local court. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Really nothing new here because it has long been known that Samsung was sponsoring her equestrian training in return for influence from her mother. Chung has just confirmed what was already known.
The host, Tami Barker, told the woman who reserved her Big Bear cabin for a ski vacation in February that she would not rent to an Asian, justifying the action by adding in a text message, “It’s why we have Trump,” referring to President Trump.
The woman, Dyne Suh, a UCLA law student, said she was driving in a snowstorm to the Big Bear cabin when she received the text messages via the Airbnb mobile app. A tearful Suh, standing in the snow, shot a video posted on YouTube, describing her exchange with Barker.
“I’ve been here since I was 3 years old,” she said in the video. “America is my home. I consider myself an American. But this woman discriminates against me because I’m Asian.” [LA Times]
It is pretty incredible that this guy rapes and assaults a female high school student in South Korea and gets no jail time:
A Korean man who fled the country after raping a minor was repatriated after committing the same crime in Australia, according to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) Thursday.
The rapist, surnamed Hwang, 35, was initially sentenced to 30 months’ jail, suspended for four years, in 2010 for raping and assaulting a female high school student.
But during his probation, police and the prosecutors’ office investigated Hwang for breaking and entering in June 2012.
Sensing his probation would be cancelled, Hwang fled to Australia after a layover in the Philippines in July 2012.
The Korean court sentenced Hwang to an additional eight months in prison in his absence.
But even in Australia, Hwang’s old habits continued.
He was eventually caught and an Australian court sentenced him to nine years in prison on four charges of rape and attempted rape during his stay in New South Wales. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but this is another example of past lenient sentences for sex criminals in South Korea. These past sentences were so weak that a Korean family had the rape of their son by a Camp Jackson NCO transferred to the US military legal system instead of being tried in a ROK civilian court. The NCO rapist received a 30 year sentence for his crime while the guy in the above article rapes a high school student and goes free.
One of the worst sentences I have seen is when a 19-year old US Army private was raped by a taxi cab driver that picked her up at Incheon International Airport and he received no jail time because she did not resist enough.
A young couple who allegedly robbed and killed a 47-year-old woman at a golf driving range in Changwon, South Gyeongsang, on June 24 was arrested Monday from a motel hideout in Seoul. The victim drove an Audi, so the suspects thought she was rich, police said.
The apprehension of 31-year-old Shim Cheon-woo and his girlfriend, 36-year-old Kang Jeong-im, came nine days after the alleged murder and six days after a third suspect, Shim’s 29-year-old second cousin, was arrested while on the run.
The older Shim and Kang met in 2013 working as caddies at a golf course in South Gyeongsang and started dating. The younger Shim told police that his older cousin promised him riches if he helped in a murder plot.
The case goes back to June 24 at around 5 p.m., when the three suspects were casing a basement parking lot of a Changwon driving range in search of rich people to rob. The victim arrived in an Audi A8 sedan. The three suspects parked their Kia Sportage beside the Audi and awaited the driver’s return.
The victim returned to her car at 8:30 p.m. and the two Shims shoved her into the Sportage. Kang allegedly followed in the Audi, according to police. The victim was forced to tell them the pin code for her credit card. Kang and the younger Shim went to check whether the pin code was correct, while the older Shim drove the victim to an isolated, abandoned gas station in Goseong County, about 40 kilometers away. He killed her, according to testimony from the younger Shim, police said. An autopsy of the victim revealed she died of suffocation at around 10:30 p.m. that day.
The suspects abandoned the corpse under a bridge in Jinju, South Gyeongsang, and fled to Suncheon, South Jeolla. They withdrew 4.1 million won ($3,575) using the victim’s credit card on June 25, and went back to Suncheon to get haircuts at a salon to alter their appearances. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Here is a horrible murder story that happened down in Changwon:
Changwon Seobu police are hunting two people who allegedly abducted and killed a woman.
The suspects, Shim Cheon-woo, 31, and Kang Jeong-im, 36, allegedly targeted the woman, 47, who was leaving a golf practice facility in Uichang-gu, Changwon, in South Gyeongsang Province, about 8:30 p.m. on June 24. A man, identified as Shim, 29, also was involved, police said.
They said they caught Shim hiding under a car in an apartment parking lot in Haman, in the same province, about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday. They have sought an arrest warrant for him on a murder charge.
Police found the victim’s body in a bag under Jinsu Bridge in Jinju about 6 p.m. the same day. It was sent to the National Forensic Service.
Police have seized an SUV used in the crime. They put the suspects on a wanted list Wednesday, with a 5 million won ($4,390) bounty.
The article says the motive remains unknown, but according to the below Yonhap video the woman’s credit card was stolen and over $4,000 withdrawn. This makes me wonder if these are a couple of druggies trying to get money for their next hit?
With the leftists emboldened every GI crime incident now has the potential to be blown up in the media. So far this one has been kept pretty low key considering it happened back on April 1st and we are hearing about it now:
An American soldier faces a charge for sexual assault, the Gangnam Police Station said Monday. The soldier, part of the United States Forces Korea stationed at Osan Air Base in Gyeonggi Province, allegedly raped a woman after taking her to a hotel at 7:30 a.m. near a club where they met in Gangnam, April 1.
According to police, the woman had been intoxicated when she was taken to the hotel and then raped. She reported the incident to the police the same day, claiming she believed she was raped.
After about a month-long police investigation, in which the police analyzed video footage from the club and hotel, the police identified the soldier as the culprit. The police summoned the suspect for questioning June 17 and indicted him June 20, following the protocol of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), a mutual defense treaty between Korea and the U.S. [Korea Times]
Just like with all the other criminal cases involving US GI’s this soldier will be prosecuted through the Korean court system and if found guilty will be put in Korean prison. It will be interesting to see in the coming months if the currently emboldened anti-US groups in Korea will try to revive the narrative that GIs are committing all these crimes and then flying home with no punishment.
Choi Soon-sil is likely just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to college admissions corruption so prosecutors are probably trying to send a message to other people trying to do this with this sentence:
Choi Soon-sil
The Seoul Central District Court handed Choi Soon-sil a three-year prison term in the first trial Friday over charges she made Ewha Womans University provide favors for her daughter in admissions and grading.
This was the first court ruling for Choi over the influence-peddling scandal, which removed her longtime friend former President Park Geun-hye from office in March.
Hearings are taking place for other cases including allegedly pressuring conglomerates for funds and receiving bribes from Samsung in return for granting it business favors.
Choi has been detained and indicted on charges of work disturbance for making the school’s faculty change rules to admit her daughter Chung Yoo-ra and give her passing grades despite her absence from school. The independent counsel team led by Park Young-soo had sought seven years for that charge. [Korea Times]
This provided photo shows a refrigerator in a house in the coastal city of Busan on June 17, 2017, where the bodies of two babies were found the same day. (Yonhap)
A woman confessed to having let her newborn babies die and then storing the bodies in her home refrigerator for fear that her live-in lover would leave if he found out about the births, police said Tuesday.
Police apprehended the 33-year-old woman, only identified by her family name Kim, after the bodies were found wrapped in black envelopes in a freezer in a house in the coastal city of Busan on Saturday.
The Busan Southern Police said Kim tried to conceal her baby deliveries because she feared her partner might leave her if he knew that she gave birth to babies whose father was uncertain. Both babies were daughters.
Kim and the man, who got to know each other five years ago, started to live together last April. The man told investigators that he had no idea of her pregnancy or her disposal of the babies. [Yonhap]
You can read the details at the link of how she killed her two babies before putting them in the refrigerator.
Here is another case of people being caught smuggling gold into South Korea in their underwear:
The gold bars and the underwear two Vietnamese flight attendants working for Asiana Airlines attempted to smuggle into the country. /Courtesy of the Korea Customs Service
Two Vietnamese flight attendants working for Asiana Airlines, Korea’s second largest carrier, have been detained after trying to smuggle 19 kilograms of gold into the country, the Korea Customs Service (KCS) said Thursday.
According to the KCS Incheon office, the attendants were concealing 1-kilogram-gold bars ― 10 on one and nine on the other ― in their underwear when they arrived at Incheon International Airport on June 5 from Vietnam.
The KCS said this was not their first smuggling attempt, saying it has confirmed that the two succeeded in smuggling 13 kilograms of gold into Korea on three occasions in April.
They will face charges of attempting to smuggle 32 kilograms of gold, worth about 1.5 billion won ($1.33 million), into the country. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I wonder if the flight attendants were dressed like this?
Via a reader tip comes this news of the murder of high rise building window worker:
A 41-year-old man was arrested for murder in Yangsan this morning after he cut a worker’s safety cord because the music playing from his cell phone was “too loud”.
Yangsan police say the man went to the top of the 15 story apartment and cut the two men’s safety cord with a knife at 8:13 a.m. this morning who were applying silicon sealant on a 12th floor window.
A 46-year-old worker plunged to his death, while a 36-year-old worker survived as his rope wasn’t completely cut. [Busan Haps]
You can read the rest at the link, but unsurprisingly the suspect who cut the cord was an unemployed drunk.
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