Category: crime & punishment

I have never heard this excuse before to justify murdering someone:

A former Fort Bliss soldier admitted killing a transgender prostitute, who he said attempted to blackmail and rape him, according to testimony.
Anthony Michael Bowden, who was an active-duty soldier at the time of the crime, faces one count of murder in the death of Erykah Tijerina on Aug. 8, 2016. Bowden was a Patriot Launching Station crewman assigned to 5th Battalion, 52nd Air Defense Artillery, 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command.
The murder trial began Tuesday in the 384th District Court with Judge Patrick Garcia presiding.
Bowden could get life in prison if convicted of murder.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes news that a Korean national with a US Green Card was recently convicted for illegally voting:

A permanent resident in North Carolina will not face prison time after she was illegally allowed to vote during three separate elections.

Hyo Suk George, 70, was charged with illegal voting by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after she reportedly voted in 2008, 2010 and 2016 in Columbus County. Instead of sentencing George to six months in prison, U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle fined George $100.
George arrived in the United States from South Korea in 1989. She got a green card in 1995 and has worked in housekeeping and fast food, her federal public defender Sherri Alspaugh said. She registered to vote “next to the senior center” after taking the advice of a town council member, according to the News & Observer.

In his ruling, Boyle also expressed frustration towards the elections board in Whiteville, North Carolina, because it allowed George to register to vote using her green card, Social Security number and driver’s license, the News & Observer reported.
“So they see a green card and say, ‘That’s OK’ because they don’t know what they’re doing,” the judge said. “They ought to be a little smarter than that.”

Newsweek

You can read more at the link, but this makes me wonder how much of this illegal voter registration is going on?

Also it shows the weakness of voter ID laws at polling stations when green card holders are allowed to register and polling stations usually require a driver’s license to vote which green card holders can get.

It is amazing how the fraudsters find ways to get money from people in just about every industry, even from animal rights groups:

Park So-youn, the head of Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth (CARE), may be charged with multiple crimes including habitual fraud, as she allegedly had more than 250 animals euthanized without telling the group staffers and supporters.

Kwon Yu-rim, a lawyer at Yuldam Law Office, said Sunday they will file a complaint with the police as early as this week.

The move follows a CARE staffer revealing that some 250 healthy animals the group had rescued have been put down upon Park’s order between 2015 and 2018 without the knowledge of most of the other CARE members.

CARE is one of the nation’s largest animal rights organizations, collecting about 1.5 billion won to 2 billion won of donations per year.

Kwon said Park could face criminal charges as she has continued doing so without informing staffers and donors.

“CARE has been raising funds under the name of rescuing and treating abused animals. It has never informed people of the euthanasia practice and many of the donors would not have contributed their money if they had known about that. In that sense, her action is fraud by nonfeasance,” Kwon said. “As she has continued such acts, it is habitual fraud.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The NCO in this article was right to take this to a court martial because she was acquitted of all charges:

 A senior noncommissioned officer accused of pointing a pistol at one soldier, calling another fat and improperly touching a third’s hair was acquitted of all related charges at her court-martial Wednesday.
Sgt. 1st Class Jessica Barboza was found not guilty of dereliction of duty, maltreatment and disrespecting an NCO by a panel of nine male officers and senior NCOs. At least four of them had to agree to acquit.
“I’m relieved,” said Barboza, 35, of the 2nd NATO Signal Battalion in Naples, “I’m just grateful to the jury members.”
Criminal charges were brought against Barboza after she declined to accept nonjudicial punishment, following a command investigation into complaints about her more than a year ago.
“You won’t see these crimes on ‘Law & Order,’” prosecutor Capt. Mike Gerrity conceded in his closing argument. “But this is the military. Sergeant 1st Class Barboza failed to put her soldiers’ needs above her own.”
Testimony against her included that of two soldiers who said she’d pointed a 9 mm pistol at one of them during weapons training, which Barboza said wasn’t true. Another soldier said Barboza humiliated her by repeatedly calling her fat, while an African-American staff sergeant said Barboza had touched her hair without permission and then called it “nasty” when rebuked.

Stars & Stripes

You can read the rest at the link, but the NCO basically said that these soldiers were out to get her because she is too gung-ho. She said that in the future she will try to be more sensitive.

I have ever seen anyone get court martialed and face a year in jail for incidents like this before:

If found guilty, the sentencing guidelines call for up to a year in jail and a bad conduct discharge. The charges against her stem from three incidents, which Kman described in his opening statement.
Pointing a 9mm pistol at another sergeant during preliminary marksmanship instruction at the range near Allied Joint Force Command Naples in November 2017 constituted dereliction of duty, he said.
“She said, ‘Stay still so I can find my sight picture,’” the prosecutor said. “The government doesn’t care if SFC Barboza thought she was being funny.”
Repeatedly calling a specialist fat in front of other soldiers was maltreatment, he said, and Barboza had committed disrespect of a noncommissioned officer when she touched the hair of an African-American staff sergeant and made a derogatory comment.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Makes me wonder how big the market for fake refugee applications is in the US if this is even happening in South Korea:

A 34-year-old Ukrainian woman was sentenced to 14 months in jail for helping other foreigners draft fake refugee applications, Tuesday.

The Incheon District Court said the woman “repeatedly disrupted immigration processes” by writing false refugee applications for 57 foreign clients who arrived in Korea on temporary B-1 or E-9 visas.

According to court documents, the woman cooked up clients’ stories telling of prosecution in their home countries, including kidnapping, rape and unfair treatment by law enforcement, between March 2017 and June 2018. She was paid 200,000 won per application by a broker company that linked her with the foreign clients.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I had a cab driver do this to me before and I got out and thanked him for the free ride after recording his driver information:

A taxi driver has been fined for overcharging British passengers. 

According to police, the driver picked them up at the International Passenger Terminal in Busan Port on Wednesday morning, drove about two kilometers with the meter off and charged 20,000 won ($18), nearly four times the proper fare. 

When the passengers told their Korean guide about the incident, the guide reported the driver to the tourist police, a special unit committed to handling complaints from foreign visitors. 

Police confirmed the offense after looking at the vehicle’s dash cam and CCTV footage. The driver admitted he had overcharged the passengers.

Korea Times

I wonder how much the fine was? I doubt it was enough to discourage taxi drivers from continuing this activity.

Here is the latest on the Druking Scandal:

A special prosecutor team led by Huh Ik-bum has demanded a five-year prison term for South Gyeongsang Province Governor Kim Kyoung-soo over his alleged involvement in an online opinion rigging scandal. 
 
At the final hearing on Friday, the team said Kim acted like a deviant politician by mobilizing a private group that engages in illegal acts and using public posts as bargaining chips for elections. 

Kim, a close aide to President Moon Jae-in, is accused of approving a blogger and his associates’ development of a computer program called “King Crab,” which could be used to manipulate the number of likes for online comments. 

The special counsel team believes Kim colluded with the blogger known as “druking” to manipulate comments on news articles with the program to benefit the ruling Democratic Party, then the opposition party, in the run-up to last year’s presidential election. 

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link.

This is the first time I have heard of a female teacher in South Korea being jailed for having sex with her students:

A female teacher at a private cram school, or hagwon in Korean, was jailed for having sex with two teenagers she taught. 

A district court in Uijeongbu sentenced the teacher, 29, to 10 years in prison for violating the Special Act on Sexual Violence that provides tough punishment for adults who have sex with those under 13 in any circumstances. 

The court also ordered her to receive 80 hours of psychiatric treatment and banned her employment at an organization for children for 10 years. 

She was charged with having sex with two boys she taught ― an elementary student and a middle school student ― between 2016 and 2017. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I wonder what the mental health of this guy is current is because this wasn’t a very well thought out robbery:

An American who has lived in South Korea for 20 years was arrested for robbing a lottery shop in Busan, police said Thursday.

According to Haeundae Police Station, the U.S. citizen, 63, entered the shop near Haeundae beach masked on Wednesday night, assaulted its manager and got away with bundles of cash (510,000 won, or $451).

The manager followed him shouting for help. The American was caught after police shot him with a stun gun. 

He reportedly told police he had committed the crime “for money.” According to police, the American entered the country in 1988 and taught English until 2011. He is jobless. 

Korea Times

I hope he enjoys his time in the foreigner prison over in Cheonan.