Category: crime & punishment

Here is an update in regards to one of the recent stories of senior military officers getting themselves in serious trouble.  This was the case that was going to be interesting going to trial because his lawyer was using the defense that the adultery regulation in the UCMJ is unfair because it only applies to heterosexual couples.  It would have been interesting to see how that defense would have played out which now we will never know:

The Air Force says a high-ranking officer who was charged with rape has been found dead in his off-base Colorado home.

Colorado Springs police Sgt. Tim Stanke says officers responded to a report of a suicide when they found the body of Col. Eugene Caughey on Sunday. Stanke says police are awaiting autopsy results.

The 46-year-old Caughey had been vice commander of the 50th Space Wing at Schriever Air Force Base outside Colorado Springs. The unit operates key military satellite systems.

Caughey was charged with adultery, indecent filming or photography, dereliction of duty and conduct unbecoming an officer.

Caughey is accused of raping a woman at Schriever Air Force Base, also in Colorado, in late 2014 or early 2015 while “holding her against the wall and floor using physical strength or violence,” court documents stated.

Prosecutors also accused him of photographing his exposed genitals while in uniform and groping women twice.

His court-martial was scheduled for Oct. 17.  [CBS News]

You can read more at the link.

Tragic story out of Daegu involving the search for a 11-year old boy after his mother was found dead in the Nakdong River and his 26-year old sister was found dead at a park:

Police in Daegu have started a search for an 11-year-old boy who went missing after leaving his apartment with his mother on Sept. 15.

The mother, 56, surnamed Cho, was found dead in the Nakdong River earlier this week, as was his 26-year-old sister, whose body was found at their apartment.

On Friday, the police released three photos of the boy nationwide, Ryu Jeong-min, caught by surveillance cameras.

Taken at three different locations, the photos captured the 11-year-old leaving the apartment building, leaving an elevator and picking up groceries at a supermarket. He was last seen at his apartment lobby as he was leaving with his mother.

Police said the boy is estimated to be 140 centimeters tall and wearing a white T-shirt with blue sleeves, dark pants and a cap.

Finding him is crucial to unraveling the mysterious deaths of his sister and mother, but the police said they don’t rule out that the boy might have killed himself. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Here is another story of someone from China committing a crime against a Korean national on Jeju:

A Chinese man suspected of attacking an elderly woman with a lethal weapon at a Catholic church in Jeju was arrested on Saturday, police said.

The 50-year-old man, whose identity was withheld by police, was hiding at an unidentified place in Seoguipo on the southern resort island of Jeju when police nabbed him, the Jeju Seobu Police Station said. The place is some 40 kilometers away from the scene of the incident.

He has since been under probe on attempted murder charges, they added.

The Chinese man fled the scene after stabbing the chest and abdomen of a 61-year-old Korean woman who was praying inside a Catholic church in Jeju alone at about 8:45 a.m., the police said. The type of weapon used was not specified.

The woman, identified only by her surname Kim, was in critical condition.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I can’t help but think how much different the media reaction would be in South Korea if a USFK servicemember walked into a church and tried to murder someone like this.

It will be interesting to see how much jail time this guy gets for his illegal organ transplant scheme:

The person responsible for 87 illegal organs transplant cases was arrested by the police, putting an end to eight years of hiding in China.
During that time, South Korean patients were supplied organs from deceased Chinese, some of whom were victims of accidents or executed convicts.

The Busan Metropolitan Police reported Monday the suspect, identified by his surname Kim, was arrested and charged with brokering an illegal organs trade with his Chinese partners in China.

Kim, 43, arranged a total of 87 illegal organ transplant surgeries between June 2006 and February 2011 by opening an online community site, which he advertised as a community forum for patients in need of organs transplant. By luring potential clients who were ailing from illnesses such as chronic renal insufficiency and liver cancer to his online site, Kim was found to have brokered illegal transplant surgeries worth around 6 billion won ($5.3 million) in total.

Kim pocketed 600 million won, the police discovered.

The police said Kim led the illegal campaign by arraigning schedules and locations for surgeries. In most cases, organs came from Chinese convicts just executed on death row or Chinese people killed in accidents. Among the 87 cases, six involved organs from live donors. Details as to how the suspect kept in touch with his associates in China were not disclosed.

The police added Kim had stayed in China since 2008 as an illegal alien and avoided arrest. After eight years of living in self-imposed exile, Kim, possibly exhausted from years of laying low, contacted police in South Korea in June and expressed his intention to turn himself in. He was arrested upon his arrival last month at Gimpo International Airport.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

This is a pretty bad attack considering this woman has signs of bleeding in her brain:

Police have arrested eight Chinese tourists on Jeju Island for allegedly bashing four Koreans, including a restaurant owner.

The tourists ― six men and two women ― were arrested Saturday for allegedly assaulting and injuring the Korean restaurant owner and three others, Jeju Seobu Police Station said on Monday.

The incident happened at the restaurant in the Yeondong district of Jeju.

Police said the tourists became angry when the restaurant owner, surnamed Ahn, 53, stopped them from drinking alcohol they had brought with them. They had placed their order but then decided to leave.

The tourists allegedly attacked the owner when she asked them to pay for the food. Police said they kicked her in the stomach and attempted to attack her with a bottle of alcohol.

The tourists were also accused of beating three others in the restaurant who tried to stop them, including Ahn’s son.

Ahn is being treated in hospital after signs of bleeding into her brain. Another victim is suffering facial fractures. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if the Chinese embassy will get involved and do everything they can to protect these thugs from being punished like they did when Chinese went on a rampage in Seoul in 2008 brutally beating Koreans in the streets.

American citizen Arthur Patterson (C), accused of murdering a South Korean college student in 1997, is taken away by prison officials at the Seoul High Court on Sept. 13, 2016, after the court convicted him of stabbing a college student multiple times at a Burger King in the foreigner-friendly Itaewon Ward in central Seoul. He was sentenced to 20 years in jail, which is the severest possible penalty for the defendant who was then an adolescent. (Yonhap)

This article makes me wonder how many “white envelopes” are being passed to teachers in South Korea? Is this just the tip of the iceberg?:

A case involving the principal and two teachers of a private girls’ high school in Gwangju was sent to prosecutors on charges of fabricating the school records of 25 students in order to help them gain admission to good colleges, police said Wednesday.

The three educators are suspected to have either raised the test scores of 12 students in the 11th grade and 13 students in the 12th grade or lied about their extracurricular activities.

Authorities did not say exactly how many students were aware of the plot, but hinted that “several” must have known because they were called into the teacher’s office and specifically asked what details the teachers could add to their documents to make them look better.

Some parents were said to have paid each teacher about 2 million won ($1,828) for the service, said police.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but I am a bit surprised by how cheap the bribe was.

When are people going to learn to not post naked photos on the Internet?  They can come back to haunt you at any time like this Changwon teacher is finding out:

A Changwon city elementary school teacher who posted naked pictures of his fiancee online and described what it was like to have sex with her has been suspended.

The incident came to light after a netizen posted “Please save the fiancee of the XX year old Changwon elementary school teacher” on the South Gyeongsang Office of Education Facebook page.

The netizen claimed the teacher had posted to the Internet naked pictures of his fiancee and revealed explicit details of his sex life with her. The netizen said the woman should be told of the man’s misconduct to stop their October marriage.

After the post went viral, Gyeongsang Province Changwon Office of Education (GCOE) summoned the teacher on Wednesday. He admitted he made the posts in a private internet cafe a few years ago. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

You have got to love the picture the Korea Times decided to add to this article:

A man in his 30s was arrested for allegedly masturbating at a women’s university in Seoul on Aug. 26.

Police said a campus security guard caught the man on a bench in front of the music department building of Sungshin Women’s University at 3:55 p.m. He was then handed over to police.

At the time, the university was crowded with senior students and their families taking graduation photos.

Police said the man admitted his wrongdoing during questioning. [Korea Times]

The people behind these scams are criminals that should be punished, but I am always amazed by how people keep falling for these email scams that are obviously fake:

A mother and her daughter from the United States, who are part of an international group that carries out various inheritance and investment-related email scams, were arrested for fraud by Busan police on Thursday.

The mother, 67, and her daughter, 46, took 97 million won ($87,080) from a 32-year-old Sakhalin Korean, a Russian of Korean descent from Sakhalin Island, surnamed Kim. The money was taken through a total of 16 occasions from March to August of this year in Haeundae District in Busan.

The scam started when Kim received an email in March from who appeared to be a U.S. bank employee. The email read, “One of your distant relatives had passed away and has left 12 billion won to you.” At first, Kim was skeptical but ended up believing the email because the relative’s name written on the email seemed familiar.

Kim replied to the email, “How can I receive the inheritance?”

Soon after, the supposed U.S. bank employee sent another email, recommending Kim a lawyer. When Kim contacted the lawyer from the email, she explained how to receive the money and asked for a commission. Each time the lawyer asked for her payment, Kim wired the fee to a certain bank account in the U.S. Kim received a receipt and an authentication certificate whenever he transferred the fee.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.