Ex K-pop star leaves jail after five-year rape, spycam term

SEOUL (AFP): Former K-pop star Jung Joon-young left prison Tuesday after completing a five-year term for gang rape and illicit filming, in one of South Korea’s high profile spycam scandals.

Jung was found guilty of rape on two occasions in 2016 and of filming himself having intercourse with other women without their knowledge and sharing the footage without their consent.

Known as “molka” in Korean, spycam videos are typically made by men who secretly film women in schools, toilets and elsewhere, although the term can also be applied to clandestinely-shot footage of consensual sex.

Jung’s case was one of a series of high-profile sex scandals involving male celebrities which emerged at the height of a local #MeToo movement, when thousands of women protested in the capital Seoul in 2018, chanting: “My life is not your porn”.

Another K-pop star and a former member of popular boyband BIGBANG, Seungri, was found to have received Jung’s videos and was later separately found guilty of multiple charges linked to a sex and drugs scandal at his “Burning Sun” nightclub.

Wearing a black hat and mask, the 35-year-old Jung walked out of the prison in Mokpo, some 350 kilometres (218 miles) south of Seoul, without talking to waiting press early Tuesday, the News1 agency reported.

Jung rose to fame in 2012 when he came third in the audition show “Super Star K” and had a number of solo hits before the spycam scandal emerged in early 2019, when he announced his retirement from entertainment business.

At the time the rape accusations had yet to emerge, but he said he had “committed crimes that cannot be forgiven”.

Goo Hara, a former member of girl group Kara, died by suicide in 2019 after she was blackmailed over “revenge porn” by an ex-boyfriend.

South Korean international footballer Hwang Ui-jo is currently under investigation over allegations that he filmed sexual encounters without consent.

Hwang, who is currently on loan from Nottingham Forest at Turkish club Alanyaspor, denies the charges.