Category: crime & punishment

So basically when it was all said and done Lieutenant General Franklin who was forced to retire because of this was actually right:

An Air Force sexual assault case that spanned two investigations, a lieutenant general’s forced retirement and a finding of unlawful command influence ended after more than three years Wednesday with the acquittal of Airman 1st Class Brandon T. Wright.

A military jury made up of officers and enlisted personnel — six men and one woman — found Wright not guilty at Joint Base Andrews, Md., after three hours of deliberation.

The accuser’s former Special Victims’ Counsel said the verdict, although disappointing, was not a complete loss.

“I’m disappointed that the panel did not convict him; however, I am happy that the Air Force finally took the case seriously, as it should have from the start, and my former client received the day in court that she deserved,” Maribel Jarzabek said. “I think the fact that the jury deliberated for three hours and asked to see some of the evidence showed that this wasn’t the slam-dunk case that Gen. (Craig) Franklin and others predicted it would be.”

Wright was accused of raping a staff sergeant in her apartment near Aviano Air Base, Italy, after a night of drinking and socializing in 2012.

Wright’s defense, which focused its closing argument on the prosecution’s burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and what the defense lawyers characterized as inconsistencies in the woman’s statements over the past three-plus years, hailed the verdict.

Maj. Jacob Ramer and Cpt. Patrick Hughes said in a statement that “panel member(s) understood the importance of their role and gave their full attention to resolving the question before them.”

They also said that Wright’s unit had been “monumental in… helping him through the most difficult time of his young life.”

Wright did not testify.

After an Article 32 preliminary hearing in the case, then-Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, concurring with the hearing officer’s and legal adviser’s advice, dismissed the case in 2013.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but you have to like the spin the prosecution is coming up with.  What is the purpose then of an Article 32 if someone who accuses someone of a crime deserve to have their day in court like the prosecution claims?  Lt. Gen. Franklin has now been vindicated that this case did not have enough evidence to get a conviction.  Also if anything deliberating only three hours shows how weak of a case this was. Even more troubling about this case is that it was so weak despite having the entire Air Force legal community trying to get a conviction to include using unlawful command influence:

An Air Force judge has ruled that the service’s top legal officer committed unlawful command influence in a sexual assault case, partly for political motives. Nonetheless, the case will proceed to court-martial.

Lt. Col. Joshua Kastenberg, in a July 30 ruling in response to a defense motion to dismiss the case against Airman 1st Class Brandon T. Wright, found that Lt. Gen. Richard Harding, formerly the Air Force Judge Advocate General, had improperly influenced the case or had given the appearance of doing so.

One such instance, the judge ruled, was recommending that Wright’s case be transferred to another court-martial convening authority for a do-over after the first convening authority, Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, dismissed the case in the summer of 2013. Franklin’s dismissal came after an Article 32 investigative hearing at Aviano Air Base, Italy.

Such transfers are almost unheard of. It happened in the Wright case, Kastenberg’s ruling says, in part because Harding was worried that “the failure to have charges preferred against SrA Wright would enable Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to gain needed votes on a pending bill to remove commanders from the court-martial process.”

The ruling took Harding to task for supposedly telling Col. Joseph Bialke, Franklin’s legal adviser, that sexual assault cases, absent “smoking gun” evidence about an alleged victim’s credibility, should be sent to court-martial. In so doing, Kastenberg wrote, Harding improperly attempted to shape Bialke’s future legal advice. Katsenberg ruled that the forced retirements of Bialke and Franklin after their handling of the Wright case created an appearance of unlawful command influence.  [Stars & Stripes]

All this case has likely done is force other convening authorities to send flimsy sexual assault cases to trial to protect their careers after seeing what happened to Lt. Gen. Franklin.

The Itaewon Burger King murder trial has started with former convict for the murder Edward Lee pointing the finger at Arthur John Patterson as the murderer of Korean student Cho Choong-pil:

During the questioning, Lee found it difficult to recall the situation in which the murder took place in April 1997, but the Korean-American said in the courtroom that he saw Patterson suddenly turning to the victim and stabbing him.

“When the murder took place, I went to the bathroom to wash my hands,” he said. “Patterson suddenly started to stab him. I turned around and I was shocked.

“Cho was trying to hit the accused with his right hand, but Patterson stabbed him and kept stabbing him.”

He admitted that there were only three people including Patterson, Cho and himself at the crime scene. But he continued to accuse Patterson of murdering Cho.

He also took issue with the credibility of the past investigation records and how he was treated during the questioning by the police and prosecutors.

“I have consistently asked for an interpreter, but they didn’t provide me with one,” he said. “I was interrogated without an interpreter, coerced and threated during the first investigation for 17 hours. They didn’t let me go to sleep.”   [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link, but Patterson continues to claim that Lee is the actual murderer.  I feel so bad for the victim’s mother who also testified and had to listen to the details about how her son was killed for no reason and then see these two each deny responsibility.  Even if Lee did not commit the murder he is still culpable for not saying anything after it happened.  If he saw Patterson stabbing someone to death he should of at least immediately alerted people in the restaurant to call the police and paramedics.

I am sure there is probably some crazy back story to this case:

A 40-year-old woman has been indicted on charges of forcing her husband to have sex with her, prosecutors said Tuesday.

It marks the first time that a wife has been charged with marital rape. The Supreme Court recognized spousal rape as a crime in May 2013.

The Seoul Central Prosecutors’ Office investigating the case alleges that the wife, only identified by her surname Shim, locked her husband, surnamed Kim, inside their house for 29 hours and forced him to have sex with her.

Shim allegedly committed the crime with the aim of obtaining favorable evidence to use for divorce procedures, the prosecutors said. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but no word if Songtan Sally was the perpetrator involved with this case.

With the amount of money this guy was able to fraud people out of, it seems it would be really easy for him to bribe people to fake his death:

The purported death of Cho Hee-pal, the mastermind behind South Korea’s largest-ever fraud case, returned to the spotlight as his close aide was arrested in China last week, with fresh testimonies suggesting he is actually still alive.

Cho is one of the most-wanted conmen in South Korea, having allegedly scammed up to 50,000 people out of an estimated 4 trillion won ($3.5 billion) in a pyramid marketing scheme.

The purported death of Cho Hee-pal, the mastermind behind South Korea’s largest-ever fraud case, returned to the spotlight as his close aide was arrested in China last week, with fresh testimonies suggesting he is actually still alive.

Cho is one of the most-wanted conmen in South Korea, having allegedly scammed up to 50,000 people out of an estimated 4 trillion won ($3.5 billion) in a pyramid marketing scheme.  [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link, but just think the $3.5 billion this guy swindled people out of is nothing compared to the $18 billion Bernie Madoff swindle people out of the in the US.  At least Madoff is sitting in jail unlike Cho who likely still living freely in China.

Does everyone remember the Itaewon Burger King murder case?  Well it is back for round two of two decade long effort to convict the then dependent of USFK contractor of murdering a Hongik University student back in 1997:

The two original suspects in a high-profile 1997 Itaewon murder case could potentially be brought back together today in a preparatory session before the start of legal proceedings in the trial against 36-year-old American Arthur Patterson.

Patterson and his friend, Edward Lee, were accused of killing Hongik University student Cho Jung-pil at a fast food restaurant on April 3, 1997, in Itaewon, a popular foreigner-friendly district in central Seoul.

Cho was found dead in the bathroom of a Burger King, stabbed nine times in his neck and chest. The two men, then 18, were both in the restaurant at the time of the murder and both pinpointed the other in the killing.

Lee, a Korean-American, was later convicted for the murder but was acquitted of those charges in 1998 by the Supreme Court, which ruled that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that the murder had been carried out by one man.

He will attend as a witness in the trial against Patterson, who was originally charged and convicted for weapons possession and destruction of evidence before fleeing to the United States in 1999.

“We have confirmed that Lee … is currently staying in Korea,” a prosecutor from the Seoul Central Prosecutors’ Office said on Wednesday, adding that it was planning to request Lee as a witness in the preparatory session to be held at the Seoul Central District Court.

The same day, Lee’s father appeared on a radio program to reiterate that his son would testify in the case.

“My son came to Korea about a month ago and he will attend [the preparatory session] as a witness,” he said. “We want the case closed this time so that we can finally be free from it.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link and you can read more about this case at this prior posting.  Basically this whole case comes down to incompetence in the Korean judicial system to let these two go free in the first place.  This was a brutal murder that the family deserves justice for.

I always wondered if the various tombs in South Korea still had cultural relics left in them and apparently some of them still do:

Authorities said Tuesday that they had rounded up four people who illegally excavated two ancient burial sites in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang.

According to the Gyeongsan Police Precinct, those arrested include a 65-year-old antique dealer surnamed Park, who is alleged to have stolen artifacts from the two graves. They are questioning three others employed by Park for the project.

“We suspect that they began digging near the burial sites in January last year to make a hole large enough for a man to crawl in,” said a police officer. “They dug the hole gradually at night over two months.”

Police added that the burial mounds were surrounded by dense woods before being recently refurbished.

Investigators confiscated 38 artifacts from the graves, including golden earrings, silver swords, crowns and belts, though they believe the suspects made away with more artifacts.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

Who knew siphoning off school lunch food could be so lucrative?:

A private high school in Seoul allegedly served terrible meals to students, and 18 people, including the principal, are accused of embezzling about 400 million won ($343,000) from the lunch budget.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education revealed on Sunday the result of three inspections of Choongam High School’s school meal system from May to August this year.

“We’ve found problems in the school meal system and evidence of embezzlement that adds up to at least 410 million won,” the education office said. “We’ve reported 18 people, including the principal, administrative officer and school meal subcontractors, to the prosecution and requested some of them be sacked.”

The school has been criticized for terrible food, and its vice principal openly scolded students who did not pay for meals.

A teacher said in a radio interview that the school did not replace cooking oil until it turned black and fried dishes sometimes had black powder on them.

The school is suspected to have tried to cover up the facts when the education office was about to start its inspection in May.

According to an education office inspection report acquired by the JoongAng Ilbo, a subcontractor who delivered food to the school was told to “only talk about the business and tell nothing about other affairs when the education office calls” by a former executive of the school meal subcontractor.

“Employees of subcontractors did not properly answer questions,” an official of the inspector’s office said, “and they appeared to be hiding something.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

Another month and more dead Koreans found in the Philippines:

Another Korean couple was shot to death in the Philippines, confirmed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seoul on Friday, again in the coastal province of Cavite, 21 kilometers (13 miles) south of Manila. A middle-aged man was shot by an unidentified assailant on the road right outside the couple’s residence early Friday morning, according to the Korean Foreign Ministry. His wife was shot inside the house, where she was discovered dead.

The man, reported to be a 54-year-old surnamed Lee, held Korean nationality. However, his wife, a 47-year-old surnamed Park, was an ethnic Korean with Chinese nationality.

Park called the local police at around 1:30 a.m., which is likely around the time the shooting began. Philippine police are still investigating the fatal shootings to confirm details. Cavite is the same province in which a 64-year-old Korean man surnamed Na and his 60-year-old wife Kim were shot to death in their retirement home by an unidentified gunman on Aug. 19.

Police have yet to find a lead on that case, which was suspected to be an armed robbery. This brings the number of Koreans killed in the Philippines this year to 10, including Korean-Chinese Park, raising questions about how to bolster security for Koreans residing in or traveling to the Southeast Asian country.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

A police officer stands outside the entrance of an indoor shooting range in the southern port city of Busan on Oct. 3, 2015, after a man stabbed the owner and fled with a .45-caliber handgun and around 30 to 40 bullets. (Yonhap)

It is good this guy was caught and sentenced, but how stupid and gullible are the victims to fall for this scam?:

A former Camp Stanley employee has been sentenced to five years in prison for fraud and related charges after selling nonexistent base jobs to more than two dozen South Koreans.

The employee, surnamed Gang, worked more than 20 years in the Uijeongbu-area base, most recently as an ambulance driver, before being fired in March over the allegations.

Gang used a U.S. soldier who was unaware of the scam to interview Koreans by phone to test their English, South Korean police said. More than 30 victims paid him a total of $750,000 for the fake jobs over six and a half years, according to sentencing documents from the Anyang branch of the Suwon District Court.

Gang was also convicted of counterfeiting documents and circulating forged documents. He wrote 11 false letters of employment, using a computer at a U.S. military medical facility in Uijeongbu to produce at least one of the letters.

Among his victims was a woman who paid Gang 25 million won (almost $21,500) in 2013, believing she was securing a civilian job for her son with U.S. Forces Korea. Another woman, police said, paid Gang 100 million won (about $86,000) for administrative jobs for her husband, son and daughter. Gang promised some of his victims he would pay the human resources manager at an Army hospital, and their jobs would be guaranteed until retirement at age 68.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.