Category: crime & punishment

Imagine how much money Soldiers could make if they could sue superiors who yell at them for stupid stuff? That is basically what is going on with this lawsuit against former Korean Air executive Heather Cho:

A New York court has dismissed a suit filed by “nut rage” incident victim Park Chang-jin against former Korean Air heiress and Executive Vice President Heather Cho (Korean name – Cho Hyun-ah), sources said Friday.

Previously, the same court dismissed a case brought by Kim Do-hee, a junior flight attendant over the incident.

Claiming that he suffered from a severe physical and mental breakdown after the incident, Park filed a suit with the Queens County Supreme Court in New York against Cho in July.

The written decision for the dismissal was not disclosed but experts said it was likely to follow the precedent of Kim who also sued Cho on the same charges last March.

In Kim’s case, Robert L. Nahman, a judge in charge on the U.S. Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Queens, reportedly said upon the dismissal last month that it would be better if a Korean court dealt with the case because the plaintiff, the defendants and witnesses reside in Korea and all evidence is in Korea as well.

A series of the dismissals from the U.S court seemed to reflect Cho’s repeated requests insisting the New York court dismiss the suit so that she can stand trial in Korea.

Cho offered some 100 million won ($82,433) to Park and Kim through a Korean court to settle the case during her trial last year. But neither took the money and filed separate lawsuits in the U.S. instead.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest on the Itaewon Burger King murder trial:

Prosecutors on Friday demanded 20 years in jail for a U.S. citizen charged with slaying a Korean man nearly two decades ago.

Arthur Patterson, who was 17 at the time, is accused of stabbing 22-year-old college student Cho Joong-pil multiple times to his death inside a bathroom at a Burger King in Itaewon, a neighborhood popular with foreigners here, in 1997.

During a hearing at the Seoul Central District Court, prosecutors demanded the maximum term for minors under the age of 18, saying the suspect should in fact be jailed for life.

In demanding the sentence, they cited the brutality of the crime, Patterson’s attitude during the trial, and their judgment based on reenactments of the scene at the time.

Patterson has insisted on his innocence, saying his then-friend Edward Lee committed the crime.

Lee was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1998 but later acquitted by the Supreme Court due to lack of evidence.  [Yonhap]

Over at the Korean Law Blog the actual ROK law is posted in regards to self defense.  Of interest is that if you ever got in a struggle with someone trying to kill you that required you to defend yourself to kill them you most likely get prosecuted for it:

Regrettably to many, Korea interprets the preceding Article 21 of Korea’s Criminal Act very narrowly. There is, only, one reported cases in the past 25 plus years where someone accused of murder has prevailed in a claim of self-defense. The only case I can find is the notorious Kongneung-Dong Murder Case. The case involved a break-in to a home that lead to the death of the burglar. The burglar was armed and he killed one person in the apartment.

The accused claimed, inter alia, that his act of killing the burglar was performed to “prevent impending and unjust infringement” (more injuries) of his “legal interest”(his life). He claimed that his only means of protecting his life was his actions. Additionally, the act of the burglar was at night.

The following charges still lead to charges by the police. The prosecution decided not to indict.  [Korean Law Blog]

You can read more at the link, but the moral of the story is that if you have to defend yourself in Korea use as little force as possible even if someone is trying to kill you.  A perfect example of the negative consequences  that can happen is the 2004 Shinchon Stabbing Incident or the 1995 Seoul Subway Brawl.  In these cases the GIs were punished for defending themselves while the Koreans that started the fights got away with no legal consequences.

The article doesn’t say if the person was a government civilian or contractor, but regardless he has been fired for having ecstasy pills mailed to him in South Korea:

An American civilian who worked at the U.S. military in South Korea has been indicted on charges of trafficking drugs to Yongsan Garrison in central Seoul, prosecutors said Friday.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said the 35-year-old, identified only by his initial J, is suspected of receiving 35 pills of MDMA, better known as “ecstasy,” and 20.5 grams of hemp from an unidentified seller last year.

Still, the suspect was not taken into custody.

The drugs were sent from the Netherlands and went through the distribution center for military posts at Incheon International Airport, Seoul’s main gateway, before arriving at the military base, prosecutors said.

The suspect, who worked with the 8th U.S. Army, was fired in September after being caught by South Korean police who received a tip from the U.S. military’s criminal investigation division.  [Yonhap]

What I am wondering about most with this story is why is the police department paying their officers for up to 30 days pay when they are getting a paycheck already from the military when on orders?  This is just another example of good intentions creating an incentive for people like this guy to cheat the taxpayer:

 

A former police officer with a little more than a year on the job has been arrested for going on a Hawaiian vacation with his girlfriend while he was receiving full pay from the department while he was purportedly on a deployment with the US Army Reserves, police said.

In a press release from Lt. Sean Cooney, commander of the Stamford police department’s Internal Affairs Division, recently resigned police officer Donald Chen, 30, has been charged with first-degree larceny and defrauding a public community and was released without bond.

“I’m extremely disappointed with what happened,” police Chief Jon Fontneau said Tuesday morning. Fontneau said that the department supports their military veterans in every way it can, including allowing them to go on deployments for up to 30 days a year with pay. “What we found to be was a case of fraud committed not only to the city of Stamford and its taxpayers and the U.S. Government,” he said.

Fontneau said that Chen, a former member of the US Army, resigned from the department before he could be fired. “He would have been fired,” Fontneau said. Chen will not receive a pension or any kind of a pay out. Fontneau said that the department will ask that prosecutors on Chen’s case apply for restitution of more than $2,000 that he was being paid for by the city for his military service.  [Stars and Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

That is at least what a Seoul court ruled earlier this week in a bribery case involving two teachers in  Seoul:

A Seoul court on Wednesday ruled in favor of two private school teachers who accepted money and gifts from the parents of their students.

The teachers, who work at Gyeseong Elementary School, were both charged with taking bribes but later acquitted by the Seoul Central District Court.

The ruling prompted an angry response from those in the education circle, with Kim Hyung-nam, the inspector of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, calling the decision “embarrassing.”

One of the teachers, surnamed Shin, 48, stood accused of taking cash, gift certificates and gifts worth a total of 4.6 million won ($3,930) from two parents over multiple occasions when he taught fourth-grade last year.

The other, surnamed Kim, 45, was accused of accepting 4 million won as well as valuables from one parent.

The court ruled Wednesday that while Shin had accepted the money and gifts, those actions did not amount to bribe-taking.

He was asked to do general favors for the students, the court said, but did not carry out unlawful favors in return for compensation.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

All the more reason why I have no urge to ever holiday in the Philippines:

Investigators returned from the Philippines on Friday after looking into the recent shooting death of a South Korean man, adding they have found key evidence to narrow down the suspects.

A 57-year-old South Korean, identified only by his surname Cho, was shot to death by four unidentified, armed assailants on Sunday at his house in Batangas, some 100km south of Manila.

The incident raised the number of South Koreans killed in the Southeast Asian country to 11 this year.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link.

Life sentence sought for senior woman suspected of poisoning soft drink https://t.co/1ATmNzXp9p pic.twitter.com/p96vqCc6Vk

— The Korea Observer (@koreaobserver) December 11, 2015

When the Lee Jung-hee Scandal broke I thought it seemed strange and sure enough it was all as expected a hoax.  This just shows how these campaigns passed around on social media I have little faith in because they are mostly not true and this scandal is just another example:

As we know now, this was all a hoax. The monstrous former husband, who was supposedly blocking the police investigation because he was so well-connected with powerful people, was no more than an old pizza delivery man living in a crappy studio apartment. Lee led to the journalists to a rural village, claiming that her perpetrators lived there–not just one or two of the perpetrators, but according to Lee, the whole village was a sex colony that raped her and her sons. (But why would these allegedly rich and powerful men who assaulted her and her sons live in a crappy rural village?) The police did investigate the former husband when Lee initially claimed sexual assault to the police. After four months of investigation, the police did not find any nefarious orgy picture or video, nor did they find any sign of drug use from the former husband.

The real story was simpler and made much more sense. Lee and the former husband were indeed married, and were in the process of divorce. The former husband did beat Lee and the children, which resulted in a favorable divorce for Lee. It was when the husband appealed the decision by the divorce court that Lee began claiming sexual assault. Her story fell apart as soon as the more serious Korean media began their investigation. Earlier this month, Lee was arrested on the charges of malicious litigation and child abuse; Lee’s children were separated from their mother and were placed in protective services.  [Ask A Korean]

You can read more of Ask A Korean’s take on this issue at the link which I agree with.

It amazes me that after already being convicted of forgery that no one scrutinized his divorce paperwork before letting this guy off the hook and allowing him to retire:

Prosecutors in South Korea have reopened the case of a U.S. soldier who allegedly tricked a local woman into a bigamous marriage and left her $50,000 in debt when he returned to his wife in America, according to South Korean news reports.

Rachel Lee, 43, a divorced mother from Chuncheon, said a friend introduced her to Master Sgt. Scott Fuller, 40, in August 2013 when Fuller was serving with the Korea-based 2nd Infantry Division. The pair hit it off and married in a traditional Korean ceremony just four months later. However, documents Fuller submitted to have the marriage recognized in Korea, including Army and U.S. Embassy certifications of his single status, turned out to be forged, she said.

“He’s a con, and he killed my soul and broke my heart,” Lee said of the deception, which was discovered only after Fuller abruptly returned to the U.S. in May 2014. “He just left without saying anything. He totally ruined my life.”

The Army returned Fuller — who was stationed at Fort Drum in New York — to South Korea when it discovered the forgeries.

In October 2014, a South Korean court found him guilty of forgery and sentenced him to eight months in prison. The Army knocked him down in rank to sergeant first class after an Article 15 hearing, according to documents provided by Lee to Stars and Stripes. The details of the case were then verified by a U.S. military official in Korea.

Fuller then convinced Lee, the Korean court and the Army that he had, at last, divorced his American wife after producing what he claimed was a divorce judgment document from a New York court. His sentence was reduced on appeal to a $10,000 fine with no prison time, and his rank was restored. Fuller also used the document to obtain a dependent identification card for Lee that listed her as his spouse.

It wasn’t until August of this year that she found out — from Fuller’s American wife, Marianne — that the divorce document was also a forgery. The Army quickly determined that the document was likely not genuine. Nonetheless, U.S. and Korean officials declined to take further action, Lee said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but what a mess.