Hostess Club Manager Who Blackmailed Lee Sun Kyun Revealed To Have Been Released From Detention
It was belatedly revealed that the hostess club manager who extorted over 300 million won [$220,046] from the late actor Lee Sun Kyun through blackmail has been released from detention.
According to the legal community on July 3, A, a woman in her 30s who was indicted on charges of blackmail and other offenses, was recently released from Incheon Detention Center after being granted bail.
The Incheon District Court’s Criminal Appellate Division 3 (Presiding Judge Choi Sung Bae) reportedly granted bail to A on June 26 by the court’s own authority.
Under Korean criminal procedure law, during the appellate process, the detention period can be extended up to three times for two months each. In A’s case, her detention was extended three times from December 31, 2023, to May 8, 2024, following the first trial verdict.
The court appears to have granted bail as A’s detention period would expire before her appellate verdict scheduled for July 16.
Meanwhile, the late Lee Sun Kyun was under police investigation for alleged drug use before being found dead on December 27, 2023.
A was arrested and indicted in September 2023 for blackmailing Lee Sun Kyun by claiming that she herself was being threatened by a hacker and needed hush money, successfully extorting 300 million won from him. In addition to this case, she had already been sentenced to one year in prison in October 2023 for drug-related charges involving methamphetamine and ketamine, committed between December 2022 and August 2023. She is reportedly a six-time offender with a history of drug use and other crimes.
In her first trial on December 19, 2023, A was sentenced to three years and six months in prison. At the appellate hearing on May 21, prosecutors demanded a seven-year prison sentence. A’s legal representative claimed she made a poor decision out of fear of an unidentified hacker and said she was deeply remorseful, also expressing an apology to the bereaved family of the late actor.
It was later revealed that the person who impersonated the hacker and threatened A was a former actress, B, who lived in the same apartment complex and was previously close to her. B not only extorted A but also directly blackmailed Lee Sun Kyun in October 2023, obtaining 50 million won from him. She was sentenced to four years and two months in prison in her first trial and is currently serving her sentence. Both A and B are appealing their verdicts.
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Source: (A)
