Tag: crime

The Grammy nominated British DJ Mark Lewis who arrested this past August for drug smuggling at Incheon International Airport ended up getting off with pretty much no punishment:

A Grammy-nominated British DJ was found guilty of smuggling drugs into South Korea last year. The Seoul Central District Court sentenced the DJ, 53, to a year in prison, suspended for two years. A Korean-American was fined 20 million won for buying and using the drugs.

The Briton was arrested at a customs checkpoint at Incheon International Airport last June. He had a 1.5-liter bottle of gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB), also known as the date-rape drug, in his baggage. The court said he smuggled GHB into the country four times — in January, March, April and June.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but Lewis admitted to smuggling GHB into the country four times, but the court said they took into consideration that he was not trying to profit from the drugs.  So what was he doing with them?  Using them to rape women?  If he wasn’t the one using them to rape women then he was giving them to someone else to help them rape women.

If people in Korea want to go protest something, then go protest this.

This guy has to be a Darwin Award candidate:

Police have cleared two civilians over a man’s death during a citizens’ arrest.

The civilians, surnamed Kim and Kwon, saw the man carrying out a sexual act near a villa in Suwon on Aug. 13, 2016.

They chased the man and caught him after he collided with a power pole.

They subdued him and handed him to the police, but he died en route to the police station.

The man’s family sued Kim and Kwon in October after the National Forensic Agency found that the death was related to physical impact during the arrest.

But on Saturday, Suwon Nambu police sent the case to the prosecutor, saying there was no evidence for an indictment.

“The police investigated the death and the manslaughter suit against the civilians,” a police official said.

“However, the prosecution concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge the civilians with manslaughter and ordered the case to be designated ‘clear from suspicion’.”  [Korea Times]

This is what happens when you use your government credit card to pay a $1,100 bill at a Hooker Hill club in Seoul:

One of the Army’s most promising generals will be demoted to one star and retired following a scandal that involved sex clubs in Seoul and Rome, high-priced booze and indiscretions with young female troops, the Army announced Thursday.

Ron Lewis, who had been a three-star general and top aide to the then-Defense secretary Ash Carter, will also lose about $10,000 a year in pension payments due to the demotion.

The Pentagon Inspector General “substantiated allegations that Maj. Gen. Lewis misused his government travel charge card for personal expenses, made false official statements regarding his (credit card) misuse, and engaged in conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman on multiple occasions,” Cynthia Smith, an Army spokeswoman, said in a statement.  (……)

Army investigators found that Lewis spent more than $1,100 in April 2015 during a visit to the “Candy Bar” in Seoul. The bar, in the city’s red-light district known as “Hooker Hill,” had been deemed off limits to troops. When questioned about the charge, Lewis denied it was his, the Pentagon challenged the expense and got him a new card.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

It just makes you wonder why these European countries instead of taking legal action just close these embassies instead?:

The Polish government plans to take legal action to prevent the North Korean Embassy in Warsaw from continuing on its alleged illegal commercial activities, a U.S.-based media said Tuesday.

Voice of America (VOA) reported that the European country’s foreign ministry has sent VOA an email saying it will take additional steps to terminate the embassy’s illegal activities in line with new sanctions that the U.N. Security Council imposed on the North in response to its fifth and largest nuclear test.

The North Korean embassy has allegedly carried out illegal commercial activities by leasing part of its premises to local companies to earn foreign currency.

According to VOA, the Polish government has never given permission to such activities and has notified the embassy many times that they run afoul of international laws.

Similar activities by North Korean embassies across the European Union have come to the fore, and the EU has been discussing a comprehensive measure to resolve them, the report said.

Through the adoption of Resolution 2321 adopted by the U.N. Security Council, the North’s alleged illegal business practices were revealed.

The report also said Pyongyang is known to have made illegal profits through its overseas missions in four countries — Poland, Germany, Romania and Bulgaria — and these countries have expressed a resolve explicitly and implicitly to bring the issue to a settlement.  [Yonhap]

According to the Filipino President Korean gangs are responsible for much of the prostitution and drugs on the island of Cebu and he vows to kill them:

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to kill Korean criminal gangs who are involved in the illegal drug trade in his country, according to local media Monday.

Duterte told reporters recently that Korean gangs will not receive special treatment for their crimes just because they are foreign.

“For those into the racket (business) of prostitution, drugs and everything, kidnapping, you will be treated just like ordinary criminals,” Duterte, who has repeatedly encouraged citizens and police to kill those involved in illegal drug trafficking, said in a stern warning.

The statement came after Philippine National Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa claimed that a Korean gang may be behind the murder of Jee Ick-joo, a Korean businessman found dead in October inside the national police headquarters.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

I believe anyone that makes a false rape allegation should face the same punishment as someone convicted of rape.  The woman in this case since the sentence was suspended only has to do 120 hours of community service after making an allegation that could of sent the accused to jail and ruined his life:

A woman has been found guilty of falsely accusing a man of raping her.

On Monday, Ulsan District Court sentenced the woman to eight months’ jail, suspended for two years, and 120 hours of community service.

According to the court, the woman falsely accused a man of raping her when she was drunk last year.

But the court found that the woman had consented to having sexual intercourse.

When her boyfriend found out that she cheated on him, she falsely told police the man had raped her.

“Sexual crimes often have no objective evidence other than the statement of the victims,” the court said in a ruling statement.

“Therefore a false claim can greatly hinder the justice system and needs to be severely punished.”  [Korea Times]

Here is a real dirtbag that hopefully will be spending the rest of his life in prison:

A man who killed his pregnant girlfriend also attempted to murder his ex-lover, a court said Monday.

Daejeon High Court, sitting as an appeal court, sentenced the man, 37, whose name has been withheld, to 35 years’ jail, increasing the initial 30-year sentence because of his “inhumane sin.”

The court said the man went to Jeju Island with his girlfriend last November to search for a place to open a restaurant. The couple spent a night at a motel and next morning had an argument over financial issues. The man then tried to strangle the woman because she “disrespected him.” When he found she was not dead, he made another attempt using a hairdryer cord.

The man then put the woman’s body into their rental car and set the vehicle alight to make her death look like it was the result of an accident. [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but the guy was recently out of prison for trying to kill his ex-girlfriend.

It looks like the US military may have its first execution in more than half a century:

A Kansas federal judge has lifted a stay of execution for a former soldier sentenced to death for two killings and a series of rapes, inching the man closer to becoming the military’s first death sentence carried out in more than a half century.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten last week sided with the U.S. government in denying a bid by former Fort Bragg, N.C., soldier Ronald A. Gray to block the military from pressing ahead with the execution by lethal injection.

Since a military court sentenced him to die in 1988, Gray has been held at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where the military carried out its last execution when it hanged Army Pvt. John Bennett in 1961 for raping and trying to kill an 11-year-old Austrian girl.  [The Virginian Pilot]

You can read more at the link.

Here is an interesting read from the LA Times about a soldier stationed at Yongsan Garrison that was being charged with the manslaughter of his best friend:

The men were U.S. Army mechanics, and they had arranged to be deployed at the same time in South Korea. Pfc. Royal, 22, was based at the Yongsan Garrison, a major U.S. military base near Itaewon. Pfc. Anderson, 20, was stationed at Humphreys, a rural garrison 55 miles south, and he was visiting for the weekend.

They drank; they played pool; they wrestled like muscle-bound, army-trained puppies, grappling into chokeholds until one or the other cried uncle. They got matching tattoos — “friends forever” swirling down their forearms in blue Korean script.

Chrissy — an energetic young woman from Royal’s North Carolina hometown — went home early, and just after midnight, Royal and Anderson decided to go home too. A taxi dropped them off near Royal’s apartment. Royal and Anderson began roughhousing. Royal pushed Anderson with two hands — a shove to the chest — and Anderson fell backwards.

Thus began the first in a tragic series of unpredictable events that would leave one friend dead, the other on trial, and the military justice system forced to grapple with complex questions about responsibility and punishment in a case whose primary villain seemed to be fate.

It happened in a matter of seconds. Just as Anderson tumbled into the street, a car veered around a corner and blazed through a red blinking light, plowing suddenly over Anderson with both axles — bump, bump. The car stopped. The police arrived. And 12 days later, Anderson died in the hospital, hooked up to a mechanical ventilator.

The Army charged Royal with manslaughter.

The hearing that would determine whether Royal would have to face a full court-martial began on a crisp day in October.  [LA Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but it seems to me that the person most culpable for the accident is the driver that ran the red light in the first place.

This is just another example of why these sexual assault cases are so hard to litigate and not as cut and dry as the activists and politicians want people to believe:

The Seoul High Court upheld Tuesday a lower court ruling that acquitted a former Korean soldier of raping a female American soldier, saying sexual relations between the two did not involve a physical attack or threats.

The Korean soldier, 22, whose name was withheld, was serving as a sergeant in the Korean Augmentation Troops to the United States Army (KATUSA) in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province, when he allegedly raped the U.S. soldier, 19, in December.

He was in charge of educating American soldiers new to Korea, and he and his accuser began seeing each other frequently and engaged in sexual relations from last October. However, on one occasion, while kissing at his barracks, the man told her he wanted to have sex and she refused. He then said he would not let her leave the room, and forcibly had sex with her anyway.

During sex, he asked her if it was rape, and as she said yes, he then stopped, and knelt down to apologize. She accepted his apology but later reported it as rape to the military police.

Even though the assailant partially admitted it was rape during the investigation, the lower and high courts did not recognize it as such.

“Although sexual intercourse occurred against the woman’s will, she said there was no physical attack, swearing or anything threatening,” the high court said. “She did not call for help or resist, but rather she undressed on her own volition,” it added. [Korea Times]

Should this be considered rape even though there was no physical attack and she did not resist in any way?  The Korean courts don’t think so, I wonder what a US court would have ruled on this?  I also wonder why the ROK Army did not try this case and instead gave it to a ROK civilian court?