Kim Se-eui, head of the Garosero Research Institute, was arrested on the 26th on charges of spreading false information by claiming that actor Kim Su-hyeon dated the late Kim Sae-ron when she was a minor.
Presiding Judge Budong-sik, the warrant-review judge at the Seoul Central District Court, issued an arrest warrant requested by prosecutors after holding a pre-arrest interrogation of Kim earlier that day, saying there was concern about destruction of evidence and flight.
Kim is accused of spreading false information by saying on YouTube and other platforms after Kim Sae-ron died in February last year that Kim Su-hyeon had dated Kim Sae-ron when she was a minor in the past, and that the direct cause of Kim Sae-ron's death was pressure from Kim Su-hyeon's side to repay debt.
Kim is also accused of defaming Kim Sae-ron by using artificial intelligence (AI) to manipulate her voice and fabricating it to say, "I had sex with Kim Su-hyeon for the first time during the winter break of my second year of middle school."
The Gangnam Police Station in Seoul concluded, as Kim Su-hyeon's side claimed, that Kim manipulated a transcript using AI. It then applied a raft of charges, including violations of the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes, defamation, intimidation, and attempted coercion, and requested an arrest warrant on the 14th.
Police believe Kim acted this way despite recognizing it was false in order to attract public attention.
Police plan to determine the specific circumstances under which Kim pressured Kim Su-hyeon's side through YouTube channels and other means.
Meanwhile, appearing at court in the morning for the warrant hearing, Kim fully denied the allegations, claiming, "The arrest warrant is a jumble of clearly false information."