Category: crime & punishment

From Yonhap:

South Korean inmates overseas suffer from excessively heavy prison terms compared to convicts at home, due to cultural differences and language barriers, a lawmaker said Monday.

There were 1,400 South Korean nationals in foreign detention centers as of the end of August, with 6.3 percent, or 228 of them having received jail sentences of 10 years or more, Rep. Im Jong-in of the ruling Uri Party said, quoting data submitted by the Justice Ministry.

In the United States, more than half of the 197 South Korean inmates were serving prison terms of 10 years or longer.

The situation was the same in China where 54 out of 168 Korean prisoners were sentenced to imprisonment of 10 years or more.

Fifteen of them received life in prison or suspended death sentences for drug offenses or fraud, the lawmaker said in a press release.

The punishments are very harsh compared to those in South Korea where those convicted on such charges face maximum sentences of 10 years of imprisonment, he claimed.

“The Justice Ministry must devise measures to save South Korean inmates serving unnecessarily long prison terms in foreign countries after closely analyzing criminal cases involving them and their sentences,” the lawmaker said.

I find it interesting that the Korean media is complaining about overseas Koreans receiving unfair “heavy prison sentences”, while in Korea crimes against foreigners often go unpunished. Let me remind everyone of one of my all time favorite Korean justice system sentences:

The Seoul High Court yesterday overturned the conviction by a lower court of a 49-year old taxi driver who had been charged with the rape of a 19-year old U.S. female soldier.
The man had received a 10-month prison term in the original trial after being convicted of luring the newly-arrived servicewoman from Incheon International Airport to a hotel near there where the woman said he raped her. The woman reported the incident to U.S. military authorities, who asked for assistance from Korean prosecutors. The appeals court ruled that the woman had shown no evidence of having refused the man’s advances, and that he used “not enough violence to constitute rape.”

This guy rapes a US soldier and was freed on appeal when he only originally received a 10 month sentence for the assualt to begin with. Then this same media has the balls to criticize US prison sentences?

This happens more than you would think:

A Camp Casey soldier was sentenced to 17 months in prison Tuesday after admitting he used another soldier’s credit card in a Dongducheon shopping spree.

Sgt. Jeffrey Mitchell of the 2nd Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 15th Field Artillery, Battery B pleaded guilty to multiple larcenies and signature forgeries, making a false official statement and wrongfully disposing of property.

Military Judge Col. Gregory Gross also sentenced Mitchell to reduction to pay grade E-1, forfeiture of all pay and a bad conduct discharge during Tuesday’s general court-martial at Camp Casey.

Mitchell is the second Army sergeant jailed this week on theft charges. On Monday, Sgt. Jeffrey A. Minnick of the 2nd ID’s 6th Battalion, 37th Field Artillery pleaded guilty to charges of theft, attempted theft and property destruction. He was sentenced to four months in jail, reduced to the lowest rank of E-1 and given a bad conduct discharge for stealing fellow soldiers’ debit cards from the battalion’s mail.

Mitchell was working as a bus monitor Oct. 14, 2005, at Camp Casey, when he found a wallet on a bus seat at the end of the night. Bus monitor duty is an extra duty shifted among soldiers to oversee others returning from a night on the town in Dongducheon.

“[Mitchell] took the credit cards out and pitched the wallet out the window,” said prosecutor Capt. Charles Halverson.

I haver personally seen multiple people go down for credit card fraud before. What kills me is that I saw one guy go down for credit card fraud only a few weeks after another guy in the unit had been caught and imprisoned for credit card fraud. Mail clerks for example receive extensive training about properly handling mail and the penalties for fraud yet I have seen multiple mail clerks go down for credit card fraud as well. Some people just think they are smarter than the system and won’t get caught, but what do they do? They go and withdraw money from a post ATM in full view of video cameras or go shopping in the PX with the stolen credit card in full view of the cameras there. It is a good thing most criminals are stupid so they can be easily caught.

Here is a group of some of the stupidest 2ID criminals of all time who just lost their legal appeal:

Three of five 2nd Infantry Division soldiers convicted of robbing a taxi driver and stuffing him in a trunk on Christmas lost their legal appeals, the Korean Supreme Court confirmed Wednesday.

Pvt. Kidrem Cortez Porter will serve four years in prison for his role in the crime, minus 67 days of time served at a Seoul detention center, Chief Justice Kim Yong-ran ruled Oct. 13.

Porter, who was turned over to Korean authorities in February, will serve the sentence after he completes an unrelated 18-month sentence for a March 2005 theft. Spc. Nicholas John Durkin and Spc. Ivey Nathaniel Westbrook, both sentenced to three and a half years in prison, had their appeals rejected.

The 2nd Infantry Division is complying with the decision and will transfer the two soldiers to South Korean custody on Friday, a 2nd ID spokeswoman said.

Pfc. John D. McCall Jr. and Pvt. Javon Joshua Reid did not appeal their three and a half year sentences and were transferred to South Korean custody Aug. 11.

The infamous “Stuff em in the Trunk Gang’s” stupidity is going to be hard to top. I’m sure some stupid criminal is going to try though.

From the Stars and Stripes:

An airman who said he went absent without leave from Osan Air Base to escape a possible court-martial and jail time got both Tuesday for the same act he hoped would keep him free.

Airman Christopher R. Neal, 21, of the 51st Communications Squadron, was sentenced to 10 months in jail and loss of pay after pleading guilty to being AWOL and to breaking restriction.

But in a pretrial agreement, Neal’s jail term was set at eight months. Because he was jailed for 69 days before trial, he’ll spend less than six months more in jail, the prosecution said.

He also was sentenced to loss of $500 per month for 10 months.

So why did this airman go AWOL and how did he get caught you ask? Juicy girl of course:

Fearing jail time, he gathered some belongings and fled to an off-base apartment he’d rented, where he lived with his girlfriend, he told the judge.

Base authorities interviewed people in the off-base bar district and passed out flyers with Neal’s picture. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations put 14 agents on the case, OSI Special Agent Kevin McCray testified.

Neal had been AWOL for 43 days when 10 OSI agents appeared suddenly at his apartment.

Neal said that while in pretrial confinement, he learned his girlfriend “had contacted them” and led them to him.

Yes juicy “contacted them” when his money ran out and nothing more could be sucked out of him I’m sure. However, sometimes no matter how many times you warn people about juicy girl they don’t listen until they lose their shirt or in this airman’s case end up in jail at the Hump.

Like Nomad put it in his post, Ville 101 boys.

More over at the Marmot’s Hole as well.

From Yonhap:

Number of foreign lawbreakers in S. Korea soar in Jan.-Aug. period SEOUL, Oct. 7 (Yonhap) —

The number of foreign lawbreakers surged this year as an increasing number of Chinese fishers illegally operated in the nation’s waters or fabricated the South Korean currency, a government report said Saturday.

There were a total of 12,423 foreign lawbreakers in the January-August period this year, compared with 13,584 foreign lawbreakers during all of 2005, said the report by the Ministry of Justice submitted to an opposition lawmaker for the parliamentary audit.

“Foreigners’ lawbreaking cases surged as there was an increase in the number of foreign industrial trainees and interracial marriages,” the report said. “Of all, most notable increase is seen in the number of foreign illegal fishers and currency fabricators.”
The number of Chinese lawbreakers accounted for 65.7 percent of the total, or 8,162, while the number of U.S. lawbreakers reached 838. The number of Japanese lawbreakers was tallied at 238, while the remaining 3,185 lawbreakers were from other nations.

You gotta love this misleading headline of foreigner crime soaring, when in fact illegal Chinese fishermen are the ones causing the overall number to rise. Reminds me of when the media had past headlines about Surging GI Crime^TM but added in USFK parking tickets to inflate the overall crime total.  Now when is the Korean media going to write an article about the surging Korean on foreigner crime? I forgot Koreans would never, ever commit rape, assault, murder, stabbings, kidnappings or even force US GIs to make coerced statements on national TV. They would never do that, would they?

It looks like one 2ID soldier got more than he could chew on in Itaewon:

A 2nd Infantry Division soldier is back in U.S. military custody Monday after being arrested by South Korean police late Sunday night in Itaewon, 8th Army officials confirmed.

South Korean police officials said Spc. Jeffrey Allen Hayden was arguing with the staff at the Goldfish Bar about how much he would pay for beer he had ordered and consumed.

Another foreigner exited the bar and asked Korean National Police and U.S. military police for assistance, according to detective Kim Young-dae.

Hayden refused their request to show identification, Kim said, and in an ensuing altercation the soldier kicked one soldier and bit a South Korean police officer.

All I can say is that at least he did not bite a taxi driver.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the SSRT internet corruption scandal on Osan Airbase. SSRT is still providing Internet access on Osan for now, but Mike from USFK Forums appears to possibly be the victim of more SSRT fraud on Osan:

Another Saturday and yet another day without internet access at the Turumi Lodge at Osan Air Base,
South Korea. SSRT, the corrupt internet service provider at Osan, seems to have a contract with Osan that stipulates they don’t have to work on the weekend.

Well, since they are being kicked off base for bribery they seems to be exploiting a loophole to deny 100s of military personnel internet access on the weekends. I can’t prove it 100%, but SSRT seems to be turning off internet service to the Turumi Lodge around 4 AM each Saturday, purposely causing an inconvenience to all occupants of the lodge. (…) Of course, the Turumi Lodge manager doesn’t work on the weekends, but I did talk to an Airmen at the front desk who said, “Around 4 AM every Saturday the internet goes down.” Sounds fishy to me. I bet if you read the contract it states that SSRT doesn’t do repairs after 4 AM. It seems they are getting sweet revenge and no one that works at the lodge seems interested in fixing the problem.

It appears SSRT will be screwing USFK personnel until the very bitter end.

Why am I not surprised?

Police have arrested the owner of a company who bribed his way to winning the exclusive telecom contract for U.S. bases in Korea. Their investigation was prompted by frequent complaints that the Internet breaks down at the bases. The reason was simple: the suspect was a cell phone lender with only 16 staffers and without any experience in the field, and he won the US$206 million exclusive contract in November 2001 by bribing to Korean-American U.S. officers.

The company, SSRT, beat service giants like the nation¿s largest broadband carrier KT as well as Hanarotelecom, Thrunet and SK Telink in an open competition to provide the Internet service for 10 years. It provides services at 13 U.S bases nationwide, including the Yongsan, Osan and Pyeongtaek bases.

The internet issues on USFK facilities has been an on going issue for sometime with no resolution. That is why I don’t find this level of corruption really surprising:

But the hasty business scheme was doomed to failure. The U.S. Forces Korea¿s board was inundated with thousands of complaints about the poor Internet service. Servicemen complained that their computer went down whenever they went online, that Internet calls to their family were cut off, and that they were charged for long-distance phone calls although they made only local calls.

When USFK authorities launched an investigation to compare the quality of the service with KT in May 2003, Jeong was introduced to the U.S. officer in charge of the inspection through the colonel. Jeong promised the inspector $65,000, enough to buy a BMW. On 17 occasions between September 2003 and July 2005, Jeong treated the inspector and gave him a total of $68,000. On Monday, Gyeonggi police arrested Jeong on charges of violating international trade laws. USFK authorities plan to dispatch investigators to Okinawa, Japan, and Georgia State, the U.S. where the two bribed Korean-American officers currently live, for additional investigations.

These two officers need to be prosecuted to the maximum of the law. This case should sound familiar to those who have been following USFK issues for a while because this is not the first time high level corruption has occurred in USFK. This internet corruption was small change compared to the Colonel Moran case of 2002:

A federal grand jury in Southern California today indicted a United States Army colonel based in South Korea on charges of orchestrating a scheme in which he solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for influencing the award of millions of dollars in contracts to two Korean businesses.
The 11-count indictment charges Col. Richard James Moran, who was commander of the United States Army Contracting Command Korea (USA-CCK), a position in which he oversaw an agency that annually approved more than $300 million worth of contracts. The federal grand jury in Santa Ana alleged that Moran influenced the award of four contracts in exchange for bribes that were paid primarily with $100 bills.
More than $700,000 in cash was discovered when investigators with the Army Criminal Investigation Command executed a search warrant at Moran¿s residence on the Yongsan Army Base on January 16, 2002. More than $400,000, which was in $100 bills, was found in Moran¿s bed.

Considering the timing of this high level corruption it makes me wonder if Colonel Moran coordinated his efforts with the current Colonel in hot water, which is just now coming to light. Hopefully the Army CID agents dig deep into all the contracts handed out during this time by USFK officials. I wouldn’t be surprised if more shady dealings are still to be discovered.

The bottom line with this corruption is that the soldiers are the ones who ultimately are getting screwed, that is why USFK needs to uncover and prosecute all corruption in Korea.

Nomad has more on this as well.

Here is a perfect example of why it is important to remember there is always two sides to every story:

Two U.S. soldiers involved in a late-night fight with South Koreans outside a bar April 15 are telling a radically different story than what South Korean police and media have reported. They said they followed a core Army value of never leaving a buddy behind, in this case one they say was attacked by a pipe-wielding South Korean man. And, they add, they were shocked to face brutality from South Korean police officers they believed would help them.

Read the whole article for the soldier’s side of the story but to summarize basically what happened was the group of soldiers came out of the club bumped into a 19 year old South Korean man and a brawl involving other South Koreans ensued. The soldiers were getting the crap kicked out of them so they jumped into a cab but the cab driver wouldn’t take them anywhere so one of the soldiers stole the cab to escape the mob beating them down. Police stop the cab and then they too beat down the soldiers as well before throwing them in jail. That is the short and sweet summary of it.

So what happens now? Well the soldiers are looking at jail time while the Korean guy gets off:

The Korean man, 19-year-old Lee Yong-whan, told police the fight started when he and a soldier bumped shoulders. Police and prosecutors say he later changed his story and agreed to pay a $2,000 fine. They wouldn¿t provide details on Lee¿s new statements.

It is actually amazing the 19 year old actually paid a fine. Usually you can attack, kidnap, and even rape US soldiers and get away with it in Korea. So why are these soldiers looking at jail time for being attacked? Well just like prior US soldiers in Korean jail you have no right to self defense in Korea:

Servicemembers accused of a crime in South Korea face a far different ordeal than they would back home, says a private U.S. lawyer practicing in South Korea.

For starters, justifying participation in a fight or illegal activity because ¿someone else started it¿ amounts to guilt, said Brendon Carr of the Seoul-based SLG law firm.

Carr has practiced law in South Korea for 10 years and was previously based in the country as a sailor.

¿There is a right of self-defense in the U.S.,¿ Carr said. ¿There is no corresponding right in Korean law. If you take my stuff and I punch you, I¿m guilty. That¿s a tough concept for a soldier to grasp. They come from a culture of measured violence.¿

Over at Nomad’s site there has been discussion going on about why soldiers are not briefed about the fact they cannot fight back in Korea if attacked. Just for the record I have long briefed by soldiers and advocated through this site, to the ridicule of some, that is best to swallow your pride and walk away from provocations in Korea because you cannot win. The deck is too stack against GI’s and foreigners in general in Korea when it comes to the Korean justice system. This incident is a perfect example. The 19 year old Korean youth admitted to his role in the fight, yet he only pays a $2,000 fine while the soldier pays $6,000 to the 19 year old “victim” and is looking at doing 1-2 years in jail. Not to mention the fact that the GI’s got the crap beaten out them including one getting hit across the face with a metal pipe.

Also keep in mind that it is important to follow command policies which are designed to help prevent incidents like this from happening. That is why there is a curfew for one. The original Korea Times report says that the incident happened at 2AM which is past curfew. The Stars and Stripes article does give any time line, but if they were out past curfew that is a contributing factor to putting yourself at greater risk for an incident. The incident happened in the TDC Ville area across from Camp Casey. If they were in the ville during normal hours there would have been more US soldiers there to possibly help them get away from the Korean mob. That is also why certain areas in Korea such as colleges are put off limits to GI’s in order to prevent incidents like this one. Obeying this command policy would have prevented the “Shinchon Stabbing” from happening. As much as soldiers gripe about the regulations in Korea, and I don’t agree with all of them either, but they are designed to protect soldiers from incidents like this.

You will always lose when in comes to altercations with Koreans, which is what these soldiers are now finding out the hard way.

Recently the attacker who slashed prominent Korean politician Park Geun-hye was rightfully sentenced to 11 years in prison for the attack:

Ji Chung-ho has been sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was indicted on charges with assaulting (allegedly, attempted murder) Park Geun-hye, ex-chairwoman of the Grand National Party, ahead of the May 31 local elections.

The Court of West Seoul decided on 11 years of imprisonment, including eight years for his mayhem and violation of election law and another three years for attempted blackmailing and mischief of public properties.

The Court denied his intention of murder due to a lack of evidence. In its verdict, the Court said, ¿Ji made a cut on the face of a female with a razor. His behavior was so vicious and the victim¿s scar was serious.¿

However, what I find interesting is that this guy receives a sentence of 11 years in prison for the attack, while a taxi cab driver who raped 19 year old US Army private who had just arrived in Korea and was taking the rapist’s taxi from the airport to the base, only received a 10 month sentence and was actually released early. It is good to see that justice was served for an attack on a Korean politician, but where is the justice for someone who came to Korea to help protect it and instead was raped for doing so?

I can only wish this Filipina woman good luck because justice for rape in Korea is hard to find:

The Negrense woman who was allegedly raped in South Korea had suffered from such a brutal beating that her jaw was fractured and she survived only when she played dead and was stuffed in a large culvert pipe by her attacker.

This was disclosed yesterday by the parents of the 30-year-old Hinigaranon, whose name is being withheld by the DAILY STAR, who said she was attacked and raped at about 9:30 p.m. on July 2 and remains in a hospital in South Korea.

She also sustained wounds in her ears, lost three teeth, was boxed in the stomach that caused swelling, while her arms bore rope marks and her legs had injuries, her father said. Even my daughter could not believe that she would survive what happened to her, which lasted from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m., the father said.

She told her parents she does not want to return home because she wants to ensure that she gets justice for what happened to her.

Why do I say justice in Korea for rape victims is hard to find? I say this because even if the rapist is found that doesn’t mean justice will actually be served. Does anyone remember this case?:

The Seoul High Court yesterday overturned the conviction by a lower court of a 49-year old taxi driver who had been charged with the rape of a 19-year old U.S. female soldier.
The man had received a 10-month prison term in the original trial after being convicted of luring the newly-arrived servicewoman from Incheon International Airport to a hotel near there where the woman said he raped her.

The woman reported the incident to U.S. military authorities, who asked for assistance from Korean prosecutors. The appeals court ruled that the woman had shown no evidence of having refused the man’s advances, and that he used “not enough violence to constitute rape.”

This case is a perfect example of the absurdity of rape convictions in Korea. First of all the criminal gets a 10 month sentence which is outrageous to begin with, but is then let go because the soldier showed no signs of refusing the man’s advances. Think about this, what are the odds that a 19 year old US soldier who just arrived to Korea would suddenly get the urge to go have sex with the 49 year old taxi driver she just met?

Actually you are lucky to catch the rapist at all such as with the rape of a US Army officer in Taegu? The fact that the Korean police are mostly incompetent in dealing with cases doesn’t help either. The best example of this was from this rape of a US English teacher in Seoul.

Rape remains a taboo subject in Korea especially when foreigners involved, which is only going to make the Filipina woman’s quest for justice that much harder.