A female BJ, who was brought to trial for extorting hundreds of millions of won from singer and musical actor Kim Junsu through repeated threats, has been sentenced to seven years in prison.
The Supreme Court's third division (Chief Justice Lee Heung-gu) rejected the appeal of a woman in her 30s, known as A, who was charged with violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Economic Crimes (blackmail) on the 24th.
This means that the reason for the appeal did not meet the requirements under criminal procedure law, so the original judgment sentencing her to seven years in prison has been upheld.
A is accused of threatening Kim Junsu a total of 101 times from September 2020 to October 2023 while working as a BJ on an online broadcasting platform. It was revealed that she recorded private conversations with Kim Junsu illegally and threatened to distribute them on social media (SNS) or online communities.
Kim Junsu's agency stated at the time, "A recorded her conversations with Kim Junsu for illegal purposes and threatened to distribute them on SNS, saying, 'I know that Kim Junsu did nothing wrong, but an article that is not true can ruin an entertainer's image, and Kim Junsu won't be able to make any grants, so he will never be able to recover his image. I have nothing to lose.'"
The first trial court sentenced A to seven years in prison. The court said, "She used the victim's weaknesses to threaten him and extorted more than 800 million won over a long period of time," adding, "Considering the methods used, duration, and the amount of damage inflicted, the nature of the crime is very serious." It was also noted that the victim had expressed mental distress and pleaded for severe punishment.
A appealed, claiming that the sentence was excessively harsh, but the appellate court reached the same conclusion as the original ruling. The appellate trial court pointed out that files related to the threats remained on A's mobile phone, noting a potential for further harm, and ordered the confiscation of the device.