K-pop star Seungri was sentenced to three years in prison for organizing prostitution
The loud sex scandal in South Korea, which became known back in 2019, has been continued. One of its participants, 30-year-old Lee Seung-hyun, the lead singer of the most popular Korean boy band Big Bang, who performed under the pseudonym Seungri— was sentenced to three years in prison. He was convicted of organizing prostitution and ordered to pay $ 1.3 million.
As soon as the scandal became known to the media, Seungri left show business and joined the army. So he appeared in a military court in the vicinity of Seoul on Thursday in a military uniform, and not in the image of a k-pop star. After listening to the judge's verdict, Lee Seung-hyun, according to Korean media, nodded his head several times, as if agreeing with the tribunal's decision, although he did not admit guilt.
Recall that the sex scandal that shook South Korea is connected with the large-scale illegal organization of sexual services that were provided to businessmen from Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong in the period from 2015 to 2016 at the Flaming Sun nightclub. As it turned out during the investigation, mass rapes of women under the influence of narcotic substances took place within the walls of the institution. The main characters of illegal parties at the first mention of this scandal in the media were k-pop stars Jung Joon-yong (he is currently serving a six-year prison sentence) and Choi Jong-hoon, who was sentenced to five years in prison. They themselves participated in sex orgies, filmed them on video, and then shared these videos in the secret chat of the Flaming Sun club. The exposure of these videos shocked the k-pop industry and the entire country.
Seungri, being the PR director of this club, was also a participant in a secret chat. During the investigation, he confessed that he paid hotel bills for businessmen coming to parties, but he allegedly did not know that rapes and orgies occur at parties. Seungri's business partner, Yoo In-seok, confessed to the police that he supplied sex workers for potential Japanese investors, and Seungri helped him in this. These testimonies were decisive against the musician.
It seems that he himself was systematically engaged in prostitution.
It is difficult to imagine that the accused did not know that women were paid for sex,
- the media quotes the words of Judge Hwang Min-jae.
Seungri was also convicted of embezzling funds from a nightclub he ran. The fact that in the period from 2013 to 2017, he gambled abroad, placing bets in Las Vegas casinos, which is prohibited by law in South Korea, also played against the singer.
This summer, an equally terrible story has already happened, although not on such a scale. Chris Wu, a member of the popular Korean-Chinese pop group EXO, was detained in early August on suspicion of rape. Just like Seungri, the musician denies his guilt.