What a sicko, it makes me wonder how long he has been doing this?:
An Air Force colonel pleaded guilty Friday to receiving child pornography online and taking photos of underage girls without their consent, according to the Department of Justice.
Col. Mark Visconi, 48, of Fairfax, Va., used an online bulletin board dedicated to sharing illegal images of minors between November 2015 and June 2016, according to the release from the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia. A forensic review of his laptop showed that Visconi downloaded and viewed numerous child pornography images and videos using an anonymous web browser.
Titles indicated he downloaded videos of girls as young as 3 years old, according to court documents. In another, investigators noted the girl had a pillowcase with characters from the animated film “Beauty and the Beast.”
The plea documents also noted Visconi used his cell phone to create more than 440 pictures focused on the clothed buttocks of minor girls, according to the release. In a smaller subset of these pictures, Visconi appeared to take “upskirting” images of some of the girls, who did not appear to know that pictures were being taken.
The embattled ROK Justice Minister’s brother pulled the oldest excuse in the book by claiming his back hurt:
Once prosecutors entirely finish their questioning of Chung, they’re expected to decide whether to file for a pretrial detention warrant like they did for Cho’s younger brother, who faces allegations of receiving hundreds of millions of won in bribes in exchange for offering jobs to teachers at a middle school operated by the Cho family.
Cho’s brother was supposed to appear at a court in Seoul on Tuesday morning to attend his warrant hearing and offer self-defense oral testimony, but he chose not to show up, citing physical pain after a recent surgery on his lower spine.
The court was expected to decide whether to detain him late Tuesday night after reviewing documents on his case.
You can read more at the link, but Cho’s brother is probably trying to drag this out as long as possible to allow his brother to have more time to gather the power and influence necessary to squash the investigation.
Via a reader tip comes news that the person suspected of the infamous Hwaseong murder and rapes over two decades ago has confessed:
Lee Chun-jae, the suspect of the serial killings in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, confessed to committing a total of 14 murders and 30 sexual assaults between 1986 and 1994. Yonhap
The prime suspect of the infamous serial killings in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, has confessed to five more murders besides the nine known cases, police said Wednesday. Lee Chun-jae, 56, also said he committed or attempted to commit about 30 sexual assaults that did not involve murder.
Lee was recently identified as the prime suspect of the nine serial killings that took place in and around Hwaseong from 1986 to 1991, after advanced DNA technology linked him with three of the cases. He is currently serving a jail sentence for a separate murder.
Since the identification, the police have questioned him over nine times. Lee first denied the allegations but confessed last week, according to the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency.
You can read more at the link, but incredibly for all the rapes and murders he has now confessed to he can not be charged with because the statute of limitations has passed. He will however remain in jail for the murder of his sister-in-law which unknowingly stopped the Hwaseong murders. He raped and murdered his sister in law because she convinced his wife to leave him.
The top story in Korea that is headlining all its news outlets is the announcement that the Hwaseong Serial Killer has been identified after all these years:
This file photo shows a wanted leaflet containing a composite sketch of the suspect for a serial murder case that took place in Hwaseong, south of Seoul, in the 1980s. (Yonhap)
Police may have solved one of the Korea’s most mysterious cold cases: the serial rapes and murders of nine women in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi, in the late 1980s.
According to Ban Ki-soo, a chief investigator at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency on Thursday, newly analyzed DNA evidence from three of the nine cases matched the DNA of a 56-year-old convict surnamed Lee currently serving a life sentence in Busan for a different murder he committed in 1994.
This discovery could very well bring a resolution to one of the most notorious serial rape and murder sprees in Korean criminal history, which terrified Korea from 1986 to 1991 and remained unsolved for three decades.
Yet the suspect, who was in his 20s at the time of the killings, can no longer be charged for any of those crimes since the statute of limitations for the last of the murders expired in April 2006. He has denied responsibility for all nine murders, police said.
Lee is serving a life sentence in the Busan Penitentiary for raping and murdering his wife’s sister, aged 20 at his home in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, in January 1994. According to press reports, he is a model prisoner with a taciturn personality who is eligible for parole.
A 10-victim rape and murder spree of the late 1980s and early 1990s terrified the nation — particularly due to the authorities’ inability to find a culprit — and was compared to the so-called Zodiac killings in California in the late 1960s. The killings gave rise to copycat crimes and inspired one of the most iconic blockbusters of Korean cinema, “Memories of Murder.”
You can read more at the link, but here is a video report of the announcement from Arirang News:
The suspect could have likely been identified sooner if the investigators back when the crimes happened did not discard so much evidence such as cigarette butts found at the scene that would have much DNA evidence. Instead modern day forensic scientists using new technology were able to extract DNA from the victim’s clothes that were saved as evidence to make this DNA match.
For those that haven’t I highly recommend watching the Korean movie, Memories of Murder which uses a dramatized account of the investigation to show how incompetent it was and the killer’s impact on Korean society back then.
What I have not been able to find out is if the identified killer was even a suspect during the time of the killings? The police back then had many suspects that they were trying to pin the murder on, so it would be interesting to see if this guy was even on the police’s radar back then.
Prosecutors seem to be acting quick to get to the bottom of the corruption surrounding President Moon’s new Justice Minister, Cho Kuk:
Cho Kuk
Prosecutors on Saturday arrested a cousin of Justice Minister Cho Kuk at the center of corruption allegations surrounding Cho and his family’s investment in a private equity fund.
The cousin, also surnamed Cho, was arrested at Incheon International Airport earlier in the day on embezzlement charges, according to officials.
After being transported to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, the cousin is currently being interrogated, the officials said.
He is allegedly the de facto head of controversial private equity fund Co-Link PE. Co-Link invested 1.4 billion won ($1.17 million) in local company Wealth C&T, whose sales soared while Cho was serving as senior presidential secretary for civil affairs.
Co-Link is also alleged to have falsely reported to the financial regulator that it received 7.4 billion won from Cho’s family for investment, despite the pledged amount being 1.05 billion won.
The arrest came as prosecutors are widening their probe into the corruption allegations surrounding the justice minister.
Despite the allegations, coupled with suspicions regarding his daughter’s education, Cho was sworn in as justice minister on Monday and said that he will not interfere with the ongoing probe. He ordered the prosecution to conduct the investigation in a fair and strict manner.
Former Governor and liberal political rival of President Moon Jae-in, An Hee-jung will be going to jail:
An Hee-jung
South Korea’s top court on Monday confirmed a lower court ruling that sentenced a former provincial governor to 3 1/2 years in prison for sexually abusing his secretary in one of the country’s most high-profile MeToo cases.
The Supreme Court handed down the ruling to former South Chungcheong Province Gov. An Hee-jung, saying that the victim’s testimony was consistent and credible enough to be accepted as evidence.
“The victim’s testimony is deemed credible given that it is consistent and very detailed without parts that are inconsistent,” the top court said in a statement.
This was a pretty big drug bust in South Korea that was facilitated by the US Coast Guard:
Police said Wednesday that they have seized more than 100 kilograms of cocaine smuggled into the Port of Taean.
According to the Korea Coast Guard, police found 100.764kg of cocaine ― worth roughly 300 billion won ($250 million) ― hidden in plastic bags on a ship that entered the port on Sunday.
The ship, loaded with coal, left Colombia on July 7 and stopped in Singapore on the way to Korea, police said.
Police said they tracked the ship after receiving information from the United States Coast Guard about the illegal drug.
Police are now interrogating the ship’s 20 Filipino crew members to find out whether any of them colluded in the alleged crime.
Here is a warning from 8th Army that USFK servicemembers may be victims of credit card fraud:
American troops may have been among the victims of hackers who stole information from more than 1 million U.S. and South Korean credit cards and listed it for sale on the dark web over the past three months, the military said.
The thefts targeted unspecified business and financial entities in South Korea and included information on at least 38,000 U.S.-issued payment cards, according to an alert distributed by the Eighth Army via its Facebook page on Monday.
An unnamed credit union that provides services at U.S. Air Force bases in South Korea was among the potentially compromised organizations, it said.
Citing the large number of U.S.-issued payment cards involved and the significant presence of American troops in South Korea, the Major Cybercrime Unit-Korea said it could “assess with medium confidence that the purchase cards of U.S. service members may have been included in this compromise.”
It is horrible what happened to this spouse, but if the military had to pay $5 million to everyone that was sexually assaulted there would not be a military for much longer:
Bethany S. and her husband, Justin, an Air Force maintainer, pose for a photo. The day after arriving at Kadena Air Base, Japan, their first assignment in the Air Force, Bethany was sexually assaulted by their official sponsor. She is fighting to make the Air Force cover the cost of her therapy if Justin were to leave the Air Force, and for the service to reform its sponsorship program. (Courtesy of Bethany S.)
Then-Amn. Justin S. and his wife, Bethany, arrived at Kadena Air Base in Japan Oct. 6, 2017, for his first duty assignment. They were excited to begin their life in the Air Force, and eager to meet their fellow airmen at Kadena, Justin’s top pick for his initial assignment.
But all that ended the next day, when their official, assigned sponsor — then-Senior Amn. Steven Newt — coaxed them to a booze-soaked barbecue at his house and pressured Justin to drink. After Justin, Bethany and most of the other party-goers had gone to sleep, Newt was caught groping and kissing Bethany’s unconscious body.
Newt pleaded guilty last October to Bethany’s sexual assault and is now serving time in jail, but the events of that night traumatized her and left her suffering from depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress requiring therapy, she said. (……)
So far, Bethany has been fighting an uphill battle with the Air Force. Last November, she filed a personal injury claim seeking $5 million from the Air Force. But in May, the Air Force Legal Operations Agency denied her claim.
You can read more at the link, but I would be surprised if the Air Force did not look into how the perpetrator’s command chose unit sponsors for newly arriving airmen. Did the perpetrator have past misconduct that should have raised red flags? Having a substandard airman be a newly arriving airman’s first impression of their unit is probably not a good thing. Also was there any unit policy to not take new airmen to drinking parties after arrival? Simple policies like this may have been able to prevent what happened.
Here is another power tip which will be called “victim blaming”, but I call common sense, do not ever get blackout drunk with people you don’t know. So many of these sexual assaults are alcohol related. You have to be careful because even the military has it share of creeps like this perpetrator who is now fortunately rotting in jail and has to register as a sex offender after his release.
South Korea has its own Jim Jones wannabe, just without the Kool-aid:
Shin Ok-ju, founder of Grace Road Church, has been jaiked for six years. Photograph: YouTube/Grace Road
The leader of a South Korean doomsday cult who held 400 people captive in Fiji and subjected them to violent beatings has been sentenced to six years in jail.
Shin Ok-ju, founder of the Grace Road Church, convinced her followers to move to Fiji in 2014, which she said was the “promised land”, pointed to in the Bible, where they would survive coming apocalyptic events.
Once they arrived on the island their passports were confiscated. Those who left the group reported brutal rituals, called “threshing floors” in which people were beaten as punishment for sinful actions or to drive out evil spirits.
On Monday a South Korean court found Shin guilty on multiple criminal charges including violence, child abuse and fraud.
“The victims suffered helplessly from collective beatings and experienced not only physical torture but also severe fear and considerable mental shock,” said the Anyang sub-court of the Suwon district court.The leader of a South Korean doomsday cult who held 400 people captive in Fiji and subjected them to violent beatings has been sentenced to six years in jail.
Shin Ok-ju, founder of the Grace Road Church, convinced her followers to move to Fiji in 2014, which she said was the “promised land”, pointed to in the Bible, where they would survive coming apocalyptic events.
Once they arrived on the island their passports were confiscated. Those who left the group reported brutal rituals, called “threshing floors” in which people were beaten as punishment for sinful actions or to drive out evil spirits.
