The former K-Pop star who was humiliated by Seungri was convicted of regulating prostitution and other charges from sex scandals and drugs and was jailed for three years Thursday by a military court, officials said.
The 30-year-old singer from the Bigbang Boyband is popular, the retirement of the show like a scandal that was installed and then registered in the military, was found guilty of the ninth count of it, the defense ministry official said told AFP.
BIGBANG enjoyed wide fame after their debut and Seungri 2006 – the real name of Lee Seung-hyun – then became a successful entrepreneur.
He was convicted of regulating sex services for potential investors in his business, as well as gambling abroad at luxury casinos in Las Vegas involving prohibited foreign exchange transactions.
“It is difficult to see the defendant not aware of financial payments paid to women for sex,” said the media report quoted Judge Hwang Min-je said.
“It seems that he does a systematic sexual prostitution.”
Seungri has changed his testimony under the police question and in court, he added, and “lack of credibility”.
His illegal gambling was “serious” considering his status as a celebrity and lasted for a long time.
The singer was also ordered to lose 1.15 billion won (around $ 1 million).
According to allegations he regulates prostitutes for foreign investors on 24 occasions for five months since September 2015.
Investigation of the scandal that surrounded him revealed a series of charges against musicians and other personnel in YG Entertainment – former Seungri agency and one of the largest K-Pop management companies.
It encourages the CEO of the agency that Hyun-Suk to retreat, facing the probe itself into a forbidden gambling.
Seungri is a member of the cellular chat room where the singer-pop songwriter Jung Joon-Young – now serves a five-year sentence for gang rape and other violations – videos spread from sexual attacks and other meetings.
Wahyu shook the K-Pop industry and became the highest profile crime involving the camera hidden secretly by women’s filming, known as “Molka” in South Korea.
Jung emerged as a witness in the trial of Seungri and testified he realized that adult entertainment managers who knew had given women.
The reaction to the verdict was fast on Thursday, with many online users, said Seungri’s sentence was too light for violations.
“Even though he was lucky he was finally imprisoned, this term was too short,” users in Naver, the largest portal in the country, posted.
Others added: “It should have been 30 years, not three.”
The verdict came a month before he would be dismissed from a mandatory military service.
All South Koreans who have a healthy body are obliged to meet about two years of military service to defend the country from nuclear North Korea, which is technically still fighting.
Prostitution case: Seungri gets 3 years in prison
