TV writer who scammed Shinhwa's Min Woo Lee out of W2.5b ordered to pay it back

A TV writer who defrauded Shinhwa member Min Woo Lee of 2.5 billion won ($1.81 million) has been ordered to pay that amount back in damages.

The writer, identified only as A, had already been convicted in criminal proceedings — the Supreme Court confirmed a seven-year prison sentence and the forfeiture of 2.46 billion won in July last year. A civil court has now weighed in. Seoul Central District Court's Civil Division 15 ruled in late July in Lee's favor in his damages suit against A, ordering A to pay Lee 2.46 billion won — the exact amount of fraud the criminal court had recognized.

The scheme began in June 2019, when Lee was booked on suspicion of sexually assaulting women in their 20s at a bar. Police found the charges credible and referred the case to prosecutors. The day after the referral, A approached Lee and demanded 250 million won, claiming she could use her connections inside the prosecution service to secure a no-charge outcome.

It was only the beginning.

Over the following year, A extracted money from Lee under a succession of pretexts — that she needed fees to arrange for a senior prosecutor to take charge of the case, that additional payments were required to keep the prosecution's internal affairs division from raising issues, and that further costs were needed to commission an analysis of closed-circuit television footage.

Separately from A's machinations, Lee was cleared of all charges in December 2019. Even so, A did not stop. She told Lee that the prosecutors who had received money were now in a difficult position because the matter had leaked to the media, that angry prosecutors were trying to reverse the no-charge decision, and that 4.5 billion won would need to be paid to a senior prosecutor in the internal affairs division.

When Lee said he had no means to raise the money, A pressed on regardless. She told him to borrow from a chaebol friend and repay her later, to hand over his bank account so she could prevent his assets from being seized, to convert luxury goods into cash, and to take out a loan secured against his housing because the money for the prosecutors was running short.

It had all been a lie from the outset. A had no ability to influence Lee's case through any prosecutor, and never intended to use the money she received for any such purpose. Over the course of a year, she took approximately 2.5 billion won from him.

A's guilt has already been confirmed in criminal proceedings.

The Supreme Court upheld a seven-year prison sentence for A on fraud charges in July last year, and at the same time confirmed the forfeiture of 2.46 billion won in criminal proceeds received under the guise of brokering and lobbying.

Once the criminal verdict was finalized, Lee filed a civil damages suit against A. The civil court ruled in Lee's favor, citing the earlier criminal judgment as its basis.

During the civil proceedings, A refused to accept liability for damages. Her legal team argued that she had already been ordered to forfeit approximately 2.5 billion won under the criminal ruling, and that requiring her to pay the same amount again to Lee would in effect constitute double compensation.

The court rejected that argument.

The panel said the argument assumed that granting the plaintiff's claim would amount to double compensation, but drew a clear distinction between a criminal forfeiture and civil damages. "A forfeiture is a criminal sanction aimed at stripping a person of property obtained through crime — its purpose and nature are entirely different from compensating a victim for losses," the court said. It added that paying a forfeiture does not extinguish civil liability to the victim, and that ordering A to compensate Lee for his losses therefore could not be considered double compensation.

The first-instance civil ruling has not yet been finalized. Both sides have appealed, and the case is now pending before Seoul High Court.