Seoul, Dec 27 (IANS) The South Korea’s Supreme Court has finalised a prison sentence of 3. 5 years for Taeil, a former member of the popular K-pop boy band NCT, for sexually assaulting an intoxicated woman, legal officials said Saturday.
The court on Friday upheld a lower court’s ruling that found the 31-year-old singer and two accomplices, identified only as his friends, guilty of a special quasi-rape charge, dismissing their final appeal, the officials said.
The charge applies when two or more people assault a victim who is unable to resist due to unconsciousness or other factors.
They were also ordered to complete 40 hours of a sexual violence treatment program and were barred from working at organisations related to children and adolescents and the disabled.
The three men were indicted without detention in March on charges of sexually assaulting a foreign woman in Seoul in June last year. The victim was reportedly a tourist who was intoxicated at the time of the incident.
During the initial trial in July, the Seoul Central District Court ordered Taeil’s immediate detention, citing the gravity of the offence.
Prosecutors had originally sought a seven-year prison term for the singer, Yonhap news agency reported.
Taeil debuted in 2016 as a member of NCT, a globally popular act managed by K-pop powerhouse SM Entertainment. However, his career came to an abrupt halt in August 2024 when police launched an investigation into the allegations.
SM promptly expelled him from the group, releasing a statement acknowledging the “severity of the matter.”
In July, a district judge in Seoul had described the crime as “extremely grave”, but handed them just half the seven-year sentence requested by prosecutors, noting they were first time offenders.
South Korean law describes this specific kind of rape as “aggravated” because it was a group attack, and a “quasi rape”, as the victim was unconscious.
–IANS
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