Category: crime & punishment

I guess this guy felt like he had nothing to lose by committing another criminal act while serving time in prison already:

A former state correction officer and lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve was arrested Friday on charges that he collected wages from the state while serving a prison sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Dennis Dockery, 52, of Bloomfield, was charged Friday with first-degree larceny by defrauding a public community and two counts of second-degree forgery. Dockery, who worked as a correction officer at the Enfield Correctional Institution, was incarcerated for 17 months at Leavenworth after he was found guilty of assaulting a woman in Hamden while on active duty with the Army, according to the warrant for his arrest.

As a military reservist, Dockery was still on the state payroll and entitled to a portion of his state salary while activated for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

He was not entitled to any salary while serving time in a military prison, but forged his orders so that it appeared he was serving at Fort Leavenworth rather than incarcerated, according to the warrant. The state requires employees activated for military service to submit his or her orders to the agency they work for to confirm they are entitled to any wages.

According to the arrest warrant, Dockery fraudulently received $5,182 in salary from the state.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes this latest foreigner buffoonery in South Korea:

Police are looking for two foreigners who ran naked along the main streets in Shinchon, western Seoul.

According to Seodaemun Police Station, the man and woman were seen running along the main streets at around 1:25 a.m. on Friday.

Witnesses said the two were drunk and screaming.

The naked man and woman were filmed on CCTV. [Korea Times]

Apparently this elderly couple had their son plus his wife and children visit on weekends which created a lot of noise which for whatever reason set this guy off.  Sadly the elderly woman was killed by the stabbing:

The 34-year-old man suspected of having stabbed a senior couple that lived upstairs from him in in Hanam, Gyeonggi, for ignoring his requests to quiet down was caught by the police at a sauna in Incheon, Hanam Police said on Monday.

The suspect is accused of having planned the crime in advance, as he allegedly had a knife with him, which was purchased one month ago, when he visited the elderly couple at about 5:50 p.m. on Saturday. The suspect had also allegedly installed a video camera in front of the victim’s home in order to find out the door passcode.

Although the husband, 68, and the wife, 67, were both stabbed, the wife died after being transferred to a hospital while the husband is in stable condition, police have announced.

“I remember having locked the door,” testified the husband. “I don’t know how he managed to open it.”

“I faced difficulties in my daily life because of the loud noise coming from upstairs,” the suspect later testified to police. “I personally went upstairs twice in March and told them to be quiet, but they kept making noise. I just got more and more stressed out as the days went by, and that’s why I did what I did.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

If restaurants are lowering prices as well as closing down due to the new anti-corruption law just how many public servants are being bought off each day with free meals in Seoul?:

The implementation of a controversial anti-corruption law is scaring the retail and restaurant industries, who fear that gifts and free meals will become illegal.

The so-called Kim Young-ran law, named for a former Supreme Court Justice and Chairwoman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission who inspired it, was promulgated and signed by President Park Geun-hye in March 2015 and will be implemented from September 28. It forbids people in a range of professions from accepting meals that cost over 30,000 won ($26), gifts valued over 50,000 won and cash payments over 100,000 won.

Public officials fall under the law but also teachers, professors and even journalists. They are considered “public” professions by the lawmakers who passed the bill.

“A lunch menu at our Chinese restaurant is priced at 39,500 won,” said Oh Hee-jin, a manger at the Ritz-Carlton Seoul. “We are looking into lowering this to 30,000 won.”

Lotte Department Store is looking at reducing the size of gift sets to get their price tags below 50,000 won each.

But lowering prices is not a viable option for everyone.

“Hotels are supposed to take pride in providing the best services and food,” said a manager at the Shilla Hotel. “We can’t do that anymore if we start lowering prices on everything.”

Some restaurant owners are closing stores altogether. Some 30 vacant sites in Insa-dong, central Seoul, were once restaurants.

“Since April, restaurants have been closing one after another,” said a real estate agent near Insa-dong. “Restaurant owners used to rent space and pay a 200 million won premium. Now they won’t sign a deal even when I’ve lowered the premium to just 100 million won.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but it is interesting that a private sector employee like a journalist is able to fall under this bill and be considered a public profession.  I am surprised no one in the media has challenged this law yet.

You would think the adultery charges this guy is facing would be the least of his troubles considering he is charged with rape as well:

Lawyers for a Schriever Air Force Base colonel argued Monday that a half-dozen adultery charges against him should be thrown out because the military’s law banning extramarital sex discriminates against heterosexuals.

Col. Eugene Marcus Caughey is headed for an August court-martial on charges of rape, assault, taking a dirty selfie and the adultery counts. He was in court Monday for a formal reading of the charges and to argue pretrial motions.

Maj. Keith Meister, one of three attorneys defending Caughey, told Air Force judge Col. Wes Moore that the military’s definition of adultery as sex between a man and a woman hasn’t keep place with its definition of marriage, which now includes same-sex couples. That’s because the military’s adultery law requires “sexual intercourse” as an element of guilt, which the Pentagon defines as an act between a man and a woman.

“A homosexual man or woman couldn’t commit adultery as defined,” Meister argued.

Caughey’s defense team maintains that because gay people get a pass, the charges violate the colonel’s rights under the 14th Amendment, which mandates equal protection under law.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read much more at the link, but one way to look at this is that the defense lawyer thinks the rape charge is weak and needs to get the adultery charges dropped because that is what the Air Force could use to really crush this guy.  It will be interesting to see how this case turns out because it could lead to an entire redefinition of what is adultery in the US military.

Considering the age of consent in South Korea the only way these two could be charged with a crime is if these teenagers were coerced into the relationships.  Considering the position of authority of a police officer you would think this would be coercive:

Two policemen in Busan resigned after it was found they had sex with high school students they were in charge of monitoring, but they faced no punishment and even received their severance pay.

One policeman surnamed Kim, 33, had sex with a 17-year-old high school student he was supposed to look after and guide, inside a car after school on June 4.

The case came to light as the student reported what had happend to the school nurse, who then alerted a female officer who was managing students at another school, who then passed the case to Busan Saha Police Station.

The Saha Police Station’s section chief verified and confirmed the facts with Kim and the school, however, closed the case without reporting to higher authorities by advising Kim to resign.

Kim handed in his notice the next day, on June 9, saying he had “decided to continue his parents’ business.” He received no punishment and received his severance pay.

When the case belatedly erupted over social media on Friday, the section chief denied having had any knowledge of the incident prior to Kim’s resignation.

A 31-year-old police officer at Busan Yeonje Police Station also had a sexual relationship with a high school student he was supervising. The teenager reportedly contemplated taking her life after the incident. Whether the two had sex more than once is yet to be confirmed.

The case was discovered by a teenagers’ welfare organization that had had a consultation session with the student. When the organization attempted to verify the case with Jeong, he filed for resignation from his post on May 17, claiming that being a police officer did not “fit his aptitude.”  [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link.

Here is a general safety note to everyone, do not let strange people into your apartment that you just met in the elevator:

The 36-year-old sex offender arrested last Saturday for allegedly murdering a 60-year-old woman in Gaepo-dong, southern Seoul, did not know his victim as he claimed.

Police now say he stalked a complete stranger, sneaked into her house to rape her and then killed her so he wouldn’t get caught.

After his arrest on June 18, the suspect, surnamed Kim, claimed he met the victim while working at a real estate agency and had known her for about a month. He told police he asked her to lend him money and murdered her when she refused.

But investigators found no record of calls or texts between the two.

Under questioning, Kim changed his story. According to police, Kim saw the victim in a parking lot on June 14, two days before the murder. Security camera footage caught him in the same parking lot as the victim.

He tailed her as she drove to her residence because he wanted to develop a “good relationship” with her, Kim said, according to police. He followed her into the apartment building elevator and introduced himself as an insurance salesman, a profession he had started to study.

He asked to come inside her apartment to tell her about policies and she agreed. When she punched the code into the security keypad of her apartment, he noted the combination of numbers.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link, but this guy was out on parole after being jailed for 10 years for a prior sexual assault and was forced to wear an ankle bracelet.  However, it broke and no one was tracking him when he committed the crime.

A night of drinking on a South Korean fishing boat led to the murder of its captain and chief engineer in the Indian Ocean:

Korea Coast Guard officers have taken into custody two Vietnamese crewmen who allegedly killed the Korean captain and chief engineer of a fishing boat.

The detention was made at Port of Victoria in Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean, Thursday night, as the Korean vessel arrived there four days after the alleged killings.

The coast guard officers are now bringing the suspects to Korea.

According to the coast guard, seven of its officers boarded the vessel, Kwang Hyun 803, with local police when a pilot was boarding around 10:10 p.m. local time. The coast guard gained control of the ship and had the vessel steered to the pier. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but the two suspects have been flown back to Korea from the Seychelles to be investigated.

Here is a strange story of a Korean movie director who broke a promise to an actress to not release a topless scene in the movie and now is facing a sexual violence crime for not keeping that promise:

Prosecutors have indicted film director Lee Soo-sung for allegedly releasing a “director’s cut” of an adult movie without agreeing with the actress who was nude in it.

The Seoul Central District Court has charged Lee with infringing the sexual violence crime punishment laws and making a false charge in his counter-accusation against Kwak Hyun-hwa, the actress.

Kwak, who starred in Lee’s movie “House With a Good View” in 2012, did not want to be part of any nude scene. Lee persuaded her that he would consider cutting out such scenes when editing the film and insisted she go topless, to which she agreed. [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link.

Here is an update on the aftermath of the Gangnam murder case:

Korea on Wednesday unveiled a series of measures aimed at creating a more equal society for women, about a month after a woman was killed by a stranger in a high-traffic neighborhood in Seoul.

The murder sent a shockwave through a nation that has made strides in recent years but apparently leaves much to be desired in areas of gender equality.

The measures announced Wednesday focus on preventing hate crimes against women, better protecting victims of such crimes and raising awareness for gender equality in the country, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said. It held ministerial-level talks with the Ministry of Education and the National Police Agency.

The measures are a follow-up to the first batch announced earlier this month when Korea decided to seek the maximum default sentence for hate crimes against women and actively appeal sentences that fall short.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but the murder of the young Korean woman in Gangnam reminds me so much of the Orlando shooting debate.  The scale of the two murders is no where near the same, but both led to false national debates.  For the Orlando shooting the debate has centered on banning so called “assault rifles” though no one has shown any evidence the terrorist would not have shot up that night club if every AR-15 in the country was confiscated.  The real problem appears to be once again a person with a history of mental trouble that was easily influenced by radical Islamic extremism.

In the Gangman murder the national debate in Korea has been about hate crimes against women when the murderer for years was in and out of mental hospitals and became homeless because his family could no longer handle caring for him due to his mental illness.  In my opinion the national debate to respond to both murder incidents does not address the core problems, but instead have been hijacked by activists to push pet political causes.