Category: crime & punishment

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.

The plagiarizers in Korea are not even trying very hard any more to hide their deception when they are just changing book covers:

Prosecutors said Tuesday they would charge 200 professors for copyright violations next month, suspecting them of changing the covers of existing books by other people and publishing them in their own names.

The Uijeongbu District Prosecutors’ Office called in 200 professors from 50 universities for questioning over the past three months. As most of the accused, including well-known lecturers, admitted to the charges, they will be indicted next month, prosecutors said. [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link.

What I have learned this week is that you can rape teenagers in Korea as long as you say you love them, but if you touch a minor inappropriately and film it you will go to jail:

A man who asked his girlfriend to harass sexually her eight-year-old son was sentenced to three years and six months in jail.

According to Suwon District Court, the man, 43, identified as Park, incited his 40-year-old girlfriend, identified as Kim, to abuse her son sexually and film it on her smartphone.

Park said he wanted to see Kim touching her son’s bodyparts while he was asleep, and asked her to send a video in December 2014. Kim and Park had been having an affair for three years since 2012.

Kim filmed her son and sent the video to Park.

Kim was indicted for filming a minor, and also sentenced to three years with five years probation. [Korea Times]

For anyone that wants to commit statutory rape in Korea, just say that you loved the victim and the Supreme Court will find you not guilty of the crime:

The Supreme Court will review the case of a man, 46, who was found not guilty of raping a teenage girl, Yonhap has reported. Prosecutors appealed the Seoul High Court’s “not-guilty” ruling on Thursday.

But the nation’s highest court is unlikely to change its stance on the case, which it has reviewed before, legal sources said.

The man, identified only as “A” and owner of an entertainment company, was indicted for allegedly raping a middle school student 27 years his junior.

According to evidence given at lower court trials, the man had sexual relations with the woman, identified as “B,” many times and got her pregnant in 2011. “B” was 15 at the time.

“A” was indicted after “B” reported to police that she was raped.

“A” was found guilty at the first and second trials.

But last November the Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s decision, as “A” kept insisting he had loved “B.” It sent the case back to the lower court, which ruled on Oct. 16 that he is not guilty of rape.  [Korea Times via the Marmot’s Hole]

How would you like to be the Company Commander for the unit this guy belonged to and got the phone call from authorities about what this guy did?  The most frustrating part of the article is that the shooter says his military training took over to explain what he did.  I’m not sure where shooting people driving by in a truck and holding a gun to a woman’s head was part of military training?  I hope he enjoys the corrective training he is going to receive in a federal penitentiary:

A special operations soldier accused of shooting a man in Tillicum on Thursday was trying to take the man’s truck and apparently failed at other carjackings after the shooting, according to charging papers.

Pierce County prosecutors said Monday they believe the man who was shot is in critical condition, in a medically induced coma, and they were not sure of his prognosis.

Spc. Jesse Suhanec, 22, of the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, is charged with first- and second-degree assault, three counts of attempted first-degree robbery and one count of attempted first-degree burglary.

Suhanec is based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

He pleaded not guilty Monday, and Court Commissioner Meagan Foley set bail at $1 million. Court records did not list an attorney for Suhanec.

According to charging papers:

The 30-year-old victim was on his way to discuss a parenting plan with his ex-wife when she heard multiple gunshots near her house about 10:10 a.m.

The man was shot the 15100 block of Grant Avenue Southwest and drove to a nearby fast-food restaurant, where he sounded the horn of the truck.

Two soldiers found him with gunshot wounds to his head and shoulders. At the hospital, doctors took out one bullet and left others as they treated him.

Meanwhile, Suhanec, who had checked out a van from his military unit, left the vehicle behind and headed down the street from the shooting.

He put a gun to a woman’s head in her driveway and said he’d kill her if she didn’t give him her car keys. [News Tribune]

You can read the rest at the link, but it only gets worse.