Photo of Jung Joon-young by Harry Cotter (CC BY 4.0)
A court in Seoul sentenced K-pop stars Jung Joon-young and Choi Jong-hoon to prison for having sex with women who were not capable of resisting them.
The Seoul Central District Court gave Jung, who is a popular singer and songwriter, a six-year jail sentence while they gave Choi, who is a former member of the boy band FT Island, a five-year term. Jung’s longer term was related to the fact that he was also convicted of recording and distributing sex videos of the women without their consent.
The court called what Jung and Choi had done together “special quasi-raping,” which is defined as perpetrators conspiring with each other to engage in sexual activities with those who are either unconscious or otherwise unable to resist or consent. The events in question occurred in 2016 and consisted of the two drugging their victims prior to raping them.
In addition to the prison sentences, both men will have to complete 80 hours of treatment programs for sex offenders.
The men have one week to file an appeal in their cases. They have long insisted on their innocence, claiming that the sex was consensual.
In recent years, South Korea’s music industry, which has exploded in popularity across the world, has faced a wide array of scandals, especially those of a sexual nature. It has been reported that a number of women in the industry have been coerced into having sexual relations with male stars. There also have been reports of sexual assault.
Just last week, K-pop star Goo Hara was found dead of an apparent suicide. This came after she had to endure a significant amount of cyberbullying and career harm relating to a dispute she had been having with a former boyfriend who was threatening to release a sex video of her. He eventually was sentenced to jail for assault.