Man who groped high school girl tried to frame his wife — police sent her to prosecutors anyway

A man in his 60s who groped a high school girl in a school elevator tried to pin the crime on his wife, an investigation found. Police sent the wife — who had not even been at the scene — to prosecutors, and it took a supplementary investigation by prosecutors to uncover the truth.

The Gunsan Branch of the Jeonju District Prosecutors Office's Criminal Division 1 (chief prosecutor Jin Gyeong-seop) indicted the man, identified only as A, without detention Tuesday on charges of violating the Act on the Protection of Children and Juveniles Against Sexual Abuse through forced indecent conduct.

A is accused of groping a teenage girl, identified as B, inside an elevator at a high school in Daejeon in early November last year.

According to prosecutors, A, his acquaintance C, B and one of B's friends were all in the elevator at the time. A is alleged to have touched B's body during that encounter.

Once a police investigation began, A asked C to impersonate his wife. Acting on that request, C called police and gave the name and resident registration number of A's wife, D, presenting herself as D.

Police believed the person they had spoken with on the phone was A's actual wife, D.

Police later summoned D for questioning. During that interview, D gave vague statements favorable to her husband. Taking her account as confirmation that she had been present at the scene, police registered D as a suspect and sent her case to prosecutors in January.

The truth emerged during prosecutors' supplementary investigation. Suspicious about the details of the case, prosecutors launched a review of the relevant records.

D then reversed her account in a prosecutors' interview, saying she had not been at the scene and that she had told police she was present only because her husband had asked her to.

Prosecutors analyzed the mobile phones of those involved and confirmed that A had instructed C to impersonate his wife and had worked to frame D as the perpetrator. They also found evidence that A had told C to change phone numbers to avoid contact from investigators, indicating an attempt to obstruct the investigation.

C is currently wanted in connection with a separate case and her whereabouts are unknown.

Prosecutors indicted A without detention after weighing the circumstances at the scene, statements from those involved and the results of the phone analysis. A is denying the charges.

D, who had been sent to prosecutors as a suspect during the police investigation, was cleared of all charges by prosecutors.

"We cannot disclose details out of concern for secondary harm to the victim, but we confirmed that the defendant had been lying continuously from the early stages of the investigation before bringing charges," a prosecutor said. "We referred the case to trial after concluding, based on the circumstances at the scene, the statements of those involved and the mobile phone analysis, that A committed the offense."