Singer To Spend 6 Years In Jail For R*pe, Sharing Secret S*x Videos

A South Korean court sentenced a K-pop musician to six years in
prison on Friday for raping a woman and distributing a video
capturing the act in a case that drew attention to the darker side
of the country’s lucrative entertainment industry.

Jung Joon-young, 30, was arrested in March. Choi Jong-hoon, 30,
a former member of South Korean boy band FT Island, was also
sentenced to five years in prison for the rape of the woman.

Both were members of online chat groups that shared secret sex
tapes and made jokes about drugging and raping women, the Seoul
Central District Court said.

Jung’s conviction also includes the illegal distribution of
other videos he took secretly while having sex with women.

The identities of the victims were suppressed to protect their
privacy.

The court also sentenced each man to 80 hours in “sexual
violence treatment” education.

“The defendants are well-known celebrities and friends, but the
chat they’ve had showed that they simply considered women as
objects of sexual pleasure, and committed crimes that were
extremely serious,” Judge Kang Seong-soo said as he handed down the
verdict.

“Strict punishment is inevitable as the damage inflicted has not
properly been recovered and the victims demand harsh
penalties.”

Jung admitted distributing the video and others he took, though
he argued the sex was in all cases consensual.

Choi denied raping the woman, and had argued that he did not
remember having sex with her and that if he had, it was likely
consensual.

Lawyers for Jung and Choi could not be reached for comment.

Their case was one of several scandals involving sex crimes and
other illegal activity that revealed a dark side of an industry at
the center of the global K-pop craze.

Lee Seung-hyun, a former member of K-pop group Big Bang better
known by the stage name Seungri, is also on trial over accusations
he paid for prostitutes for foreign businessmen to drum up
investment in his business. (Reuters/NAN)