On Wednesday, the former member of APRIL, Lee Hyunjoo’s brother who was accused of writing posts claiming that his sister was bullied by other members of the group, has received a clean chit from the police.
The law firm Lee & Kim, representing the family of Hyunjoo said in a statement, “On June 14, the police have made the decision not to appeal the contents from former APRIL member Lee Hyunjoo’s brother’s posts written online on February 28 and March 3 as they were not recognized as defamation.”
According to the latest developments in the case, the investigating officers judged that “It is difficult to conclude that Lee Hyunjoo’s brother composed the posts with malicious intent.” The authorities have also observed that Hyunjoo’s brother’s posts were “not distorted excessively from events which occurred in the past, and so they cannot be deemed as ‘false rumors”.
The legal team said, “Lee Hyunjoo’s brother was notified of having no charges on June 20 and was able to confirm the specific reason for the dismissal on June 22 by applying for a copy of the notice.
It also looks like DSP Media also received the notice about no charges before or after June 20.”
“There were a total of six people who accused Lee Hyunjoo’s brother, but the information regarding the six people are not included in the notice.
We plan on filing additional claims to find out who the six people are” they added.
“These six people made the complaint in order to receive legal judgement, and proceeded with the complaint process against a minor (Lee Hyunjoo’s brother), so we hope that they will make the necessary arguments within the procedure stipulated by law.”
Meanwhile, reportedly, the police were unable to trace who had filed the case against Hyunjoo’s brother due to a lack of accurate facts.
To obtain the names of people who submitted the defamation claims, the law firm intends to pursue additional lawsuits.
For the unversed, a user claiming to be the former APRIL member Lee Hyunjoo‘s younger brother shared a post online on alleged bullying within the group.
While DSP Media denied the claims, the agency later announced to take strict legal action against Lee Hyunjoo for ‘spreading false information.’
The alleged post claimed that Hyunjoo was bullied by the other members of the group, including the manager who allegedly yelled at her.