Police carried out a search and seizure of a senior executive at the Korea Association of the Deaf who is under suspicion of sexual assault.
According to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Women and Youth Crime Investigation Unit on the 1st, on the 29th it executed search and seizure warrants at the association's headquarters office in Geumcheon District and at the home of Director Jeong. The warrants were understood to list alleged violations of the Act on the Punishment of Sexual Crimes.
Jeong is suspected of sexually assaulting another deaf person by using the position of head of the Central Support Headquarters at the National Sign Language Interpretation Center and dangling a sign language interpreter hiring opportunity as bait.
Earlier, police received a complaint against Jeong containing these allegations and have been investigating. After the allegations surfaced, Jeong was subject to a personnel action and was later known to have recently returned to work.
Separate from the sexual assault allegations, police are also conducting a related investigation after receiving in November last year a request from the Ministry of Health and Welfare to investigate illegal acts by current and former association executives. Geumcheon Police Station, which is handling the case, was confirmed to have questioned association officials as reference witnesses.
The ministry found that the association may have committed breach of trust and obstruction of business, including using 75% of its 2021 miscellaneous expenses budget to give former Secretary-General Cho Nam-je gold bars worth 29.8 million won as a gift. In addition, there are suspicions that it operated the budget for the 2023 World Federation of the Deaf Congress opaquely and banned a specific sign language interpreter from being booked or entering.