Shinhwa Lee Minwoo ordered to pay 2.45 billion won in damages to broadcast writer A... Civil case of 'demanding money' also recognized

Regarding the case in which Lee Minwoo, a member of the group Shinhwa, was defrauded of 2.5 billion KRW by broadcast writer A, the court ruled that A must pay damages equivalent to that amount. The Civil Division 15 of the Seoul Central District Court (Chief Judge Park Jeong-gi) issued a partial victory ruling in late July on the damages claim lawsuit filed by Lee Minwoo against A. The court ordered A to compensate Lee Minwoo 2,455,590,000 KRW. This amount is the same as the fraud amount finally recognized in the criminal trial. The incident dates back to June 2019. At that time, Lee Minwoo was booked and investigated by the police on charges of sexually harassing women in their 20s at a bar. The police acknowledged the charges and sent the case to the prosecution. The day after the case was transferred to the prosecution, A received 250 million KRW from Lee Minwoo, claiming, ″I will get you cleared through connections inside the prosecution.″ Over the following year, A extorted money from Lee Minwoo under various pretexts such as ″arrangement fees to have a high-ranking prosecutor handle the case,″ ″fees to prevent issues from the prosecution’s inspection department,″ and ″CCTV video analysis costs.″ Although Lee Minwoo was cleared of charges in December 2019, A continued to demand money, saying, ″The prosecutors who received money are in trouble if this becomes public,″ ″The dismissal could be overturned,″ and ″You must pay 4.5 billion KRW to a high-ranking prosecutor in the inspection department.″ When Lee Minwoo said, ″I do not have the ability to raise money,″ A responded, ″I will borrow money from a chaebol friend and pay it; you can repay me later,″ ″Hand over your bank account because your assets might be seized,″ ″Convert luxury goods into cash,″ and ″Take out a loan using your house as collateral,″ extracting additional money. The investigation revealed that A had no ability to influence the case by asking prosecutors and had no intention of using the money received from Lee Minwoo for any petition. The amount embezzled by A over the year reached approximately 2.5 billion KRW. In the criminal trial, A was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay 2,455,590,000 KRW in confiscation by the Supreme Court in July last year for fraud charges. Subsequently, Lee Minwoo filed a civil lawsuit, and the court recognized liability for damages based on the criminal trial results. During the trial, A’s side argued, ″Since 2.5 billion KRW worth of confiscation has been imposed according to the criminal judgment, compensating Lee Minwoo again would constitute double compensation,″ but the court rejected this, stating, ″Confiscation is a criminal sanction aimed at depriving assets obtained through crime and differs in purpose and nature from damages to the victim.″ The court also clarified, ″Payment of confiscation does not extinguish civil liability for damages to the victim.″ This first-instance civil judgment is not yet final, and both parties have appealed. The second trial is currently pending at the Seoul High Court.