Category: crime & punishment

It is amazing how long this guy was able to get away with this scam and make millions of dollars undetected:

A former Army sergeant was sentenced to three years in prison for defrauding millions of dollars from the service in a rideshare scam using illegally obtained personal information from more than 800 soldiers, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. Kevin Romulus Pelayo, 45, co-owned and operated a rideshare company, Soldiers Vanpools LLC, out of Killeen with his wife, Cristine Furio Fredericks, 40, according to court documents. The company claimed to shuttle military personnel to and from Fort Cavazos, then known as Fort Hood, from Jan. 1, 2014, through June 10, 2020. Killeen is the city just outside the gates of Fort Cavazos.

The rideshare company was funded by the Army’s Mass Transportation Benefit Program, a federal subsidy for government workers to use mass transit, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Western District of Texas. “Pelayo and Fredericks submitted the names, Social Security numbers, and other identifying information of active-duty soldiers to the MTBP on a monthly basis from 2014 to midway through 2020, falsely claiming that the soldiers were active participants in the rideshare program,” according to federal authorities.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but it makes me wonder how many other people defrauded the government using this program and were not caught?

Crime may be dropping in Seoul, but the perception apparentlhy is that crime is a growing problem to be concerned about:

The number of crimes in Seoul has been declining, however, anxiety about the issue among residents is increasing, particularly among women and older adults, according to a report released by the Seoul Foundation of Women and Family, Sunday.

The foundation published the report based on data provided by Statistics Korea, which interviewed 3,007 Seoulites aged 20 and older in 2022.

According to the report, the number of crimes in the city declined from 296,178 in 2020 to 279,507 in 2022. The five major violent crimes — murder, robbery, theft, assault and sexual violence — also decreased from 92,679 to 90,339 during that period.

Despite this decline, residents’ sense of safety has not improved. On a scale from 1 (very safe) to 5 (very unsafe), the average score increased slightly from 3.13 in 2020 to 3.17 in 2022, indicating a growing perception of insecurity.

The report highlighted that women feel more anxious than men about potential crimes in their daily lives. On a scale from 1 (feeling very safe) to 10 (feeling very anxious), women scored 6.38 compared to men’s 5.4.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I think the media highlighting major crimes is probably what feeds into the public’s anxiety.

Somebody must have said something for the Thai police to have found a body in a barrel filled with concrete in a reservoir:

Thailand plans to request South Korea hand over a suspect in the murder of a South Korean tourist and disposal of the body in Pattaya, a local media report said Wednesday. 

Thai authorities are seeking the extradition of one of the three suspects, who was arrested in a provincial county in South Korea on Monday, the Khaosod daily reported quoting a local police official. 

Thai police are investigating the brutal murder case, in which the body of the 34-year-old victim was found in a plastic container filled with cement in a reservoir in Pattaya.

A Bangkok court has also issued arrest warrants for the three suspects on charges of abduction and murder, the news outlet said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It wasn’t that long ago actions like this was not taken seriously by Korean courts. It is good to see the progress made holding these weirdos accountable:

The court sentenced a pastor in his 40s to prison and arrested him in court for forcibly harassing a woman in her 20s who was a believer and related to a heterogeneous cousin.

According to the legal community on the 28th, the Chuncheon District Court’s Wonju Branch 1 (Chief Judge Lee Soo-woong) sentenced A (41) to three years in prison and arrested him without detention on charges of violating the Special Act on Sexual Violence Crimes Punishment.

The court also ordered the completion of a 40-hour sexual violence treatment program and restrictions on employment for five years at facilities related to children, adolescents, and the disabled, respectively.

A, a church pastor, was indicted on charges of hugging B and touching her body by putting her hand inside her clothes while talking to B (25, female), a member and heterogeneous cousin, at 2 p.m. on June 23 last year.

At the time, the victim refused, saying to A, “What’s wrong with you, I’ll report it,” but “There are times when I can’t control myself because there are many male hormones.” It was revealed through the indictment that he continued to molest, saying, “I wanted to touch it normally.”

Maeil Kyeongchae

You can read more at the link.

If Korea’ Democratic Party has their way, they want President Yoon’s wife to be in jail with her mother:

The Justice Ministry on Tuesday blocked the early release of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s mother-in-law, who has been serving a one-year prison term for forgery, in its latest round of monthly parole reviews, according to officials close to the matter.

Though Choi Eui-soon, the 77-year-old mother of first lady Kim Keon Hee, was excluded from the latest list of inmates to be released early, she will be reconsidered for next month’s review, under the current law.

Following an hours-long monthly review, the ministry’s Probation and Parole Board decided to “hold off” Choi’s parole, rather than “disallowing” it like they did in February. This allows Choi to be included among the list of inmates eligible for parole review next month, while the previous decision in February had led to her exclusion from the subsequent month’s review held in March.

The ministry has yet to release an official statement on its latest decision.

Choi has been incarcerated at the Dongbu Detention Center in Songpa-gu, southern Seoul since July last year, after an appellate court confirmed her one-year prison sentence for falsifying her bank balance certificate to make it appear as though she had deposited 34.9 billion won ($25.4 million) in the account for a land purchase deal, as well as for purchasing property using other people’s names.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

How would you like to be the commander who got the phone call to come pick up Satan from jail after this crazy incident:

A U.S. Navy sailor accused of slamming into a group of Japanese people in a beach town near Yokosuka Naval Base identified himself afterward as Satan, a Japanese police officer testified Thursday. Petty Officer 2nd Class Daniel Krieger, a logistics specialist assigned to the guided-missile destroyer USS Milius, is charged with four counts of bodily injury.

He pleaded not guilty during his March 8 arraignment at Yokohama District Court’s Yokosuka Branch. Krieger’s attorneys don’t dispute the facts of the July 9, 2022, incident in Zushi, a beach town on Sagami Bay, said Masahiko Goto, who represents the injured parties in a separate civil suit against the sailor. Krieger’s criminal defense lawyers argue the sailor cannot bear responsibility because he was drunk at the time and suffers from a preexisting brain injury, said Goto, whose clients are demanding damages of about $136,000.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

According to the article there is likely more than six victims that this guy has drugged and sexually assaulted:

The U.S. media released the employee’s identity while a Korean man who worked as an engineer at NASA was accused of sexually assaulting six women.

According to the Harris County Prosecutor’s Office in Texas on the 9th (local time), A (37) was charged with sexual assault on six women he met through a dating app between 2019 and 2022.

The prosecution said, “We approached women by saying that he attends NASA,” adding, “We believe that there will be additional victims in that he often traveled abroad such as Japan, the UK, and Canada.”

The investigation reportedly began with a website that shares the experiences of sexual assault victims.

There was also testimony that A secretly fed drugs and became unconscious or threatened to release sex videos if he reported them to the police.

Maeil Kyeongchae

You can read more at the link.

Just another example of the crazy defamation laws in place in South Korea:

Would it be defamation if the face of a customer who took goods without paying at an unmanned store was publicly attached to the store?

In this case, the court said, “It constitutes defamation.”

According to the legal community on the 28th, Judge Gong Woo-jin of the Incheon District Court’s Criminal Chamber 14 sentenced A (43) to a fine of 300,000 won for the owner of an unmanned stationery store accused of defamation.

Mr. A, who runs an unmanned stationery store in Jung-gu, Incheon, released a photo on November 7, 2022, showing a young customer who took goods in a bag without paying at his store.

It was released by attaching a picture of a child taken on a closed-circuit (CC) TV screen to the store, and it was put on trial when parents accused A of defaming the child.

A said, “I’m looking for a child who took a figure (model doll) worth 23,000 won and 11 Pokemon cards without paying four days ago. If you know this child, please contact me,” he said.

The court ruled that if A does not pay a fine, 100,000 won will be converted into one day and detained at a labor center for three days, saying that defamation charges are established.

Maeil Kyeongchae via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.

This shows how much times have changed in Korea. Years ago people would not have intervened in fear of getting sued by the assaulter:

A South Korean man who sustained serious injuries while trying to stop an assault of a woman will be designated as a “wounded noble person” by the law and receive state compensation, the city government of Jinju said Monday.

The city government recently granted a model citizen certificate to the man in his 50s, and is preparing for the abovementioned official designation. The Act on Honorable Treatment and Support for Persons Who Died or Were Injured for Public Good stipulates benefits for those who died or were injured while making rescue efforts without any official duty to do so.

One meeting such criteria is defined as a “deceased or wounded noble person” by the act, and can receive compensation, benefits when getting jobs, and can even be buried in the National Cemetery in cases of particularly valuable contributions.

“He sacrificed himself while trying to rescue a citizen, so we (Jinju city) decided that we should help him… In addition to the designation, we will arrange for him to get a new job and help him in other affairs as well,” the city said.

Last November, a 20-something man started attacking a female store convenience store clerk also in her 20s in Hadae-dong, Jinju. The attacker told the victim that he suspected her to be a feminist, based on her short hair, and said “feminists should be beaten up.”

The victim sustained serious injuries, including permanent impairment of her hearing.

The 50-something man was at the site and tried to stop the attacker, but he too sustained serious injuries to his face and shoulder. He had to quit his job due to the trauma from the incident, and has been suffering from financial hardship since then.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.