Eight-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, plus 120 hours of community service

An executive of a rental-car company has been convicted of extortion for coercing a K-pop girl group member by threatening to publicize footage of her private life. According to court sources on the 20th, Judge Gong Woo-jin of Incheon District Court’s Criminal Division 14 sentenced B, the head of the rental-car firm, to eight months in prison with a two-year suspension and 120 hours of community service.

The charges stem from an incident on February 21 of last year, when B allegedly used dashcam footage from a car he owned to confirm that A, a girl group member, had engaged in intimate contact with fellow member C in the back seat. He then leveraged this footage to pressure A to pay money. Using the Chinese messaging app WeChat, he allegedly sent A a message: “What did you do in the back seat yesterday? Isn’t this too much?” He also referenced the group to which C belonged, saying, “If you don’t admit after this, there’s nothing we can do,” and added, “It cost 47 million won to buy the car. For now, try paying half.”

In response, A transferred 20,000 yuan (about 3.7 million won) at 4:10 PM that day, and another 30,000 yuan (about 5.6 million won) three hours later. Nevertheless, B allegedly continued to demand the remainder of the car’s value, and A later gave an additional 500,000 won in cash. The total amount extorted amounted to roughly 9.79 million won.

The court emphasized that the defendant’s crime occurred during a period of probation, noting that the offense was not minor and constituted clear extortion. However, it noted that most of the extorted money had been returned, and that the defendant had admitted the crime and shown remorse, which contributed to the decision to issue a suspended sentence.