Supreme court ratifies prison sentence for K-pop singer Seungri
Seoul, May 26 (EFE).- The South Korean Supreme Court ratified Thursday the sentence of one and a half years in prison handed down by a military court against singer Seungri, found guilty of nine different charges, including embezzlement and acting as a prostitution service mediator.
The high court said Seungri, 31, whose real name is Lee Seung-hyun, provided prostitution services for investors from Japan, Taiwan or Hong Kong between 2015 and 2016 to obtain investment for his nightclub and other businesses.
The former member of the K-Pop band Bigbang was also found guilty of embezzling some 528 million won (about $416,750) of funds from his nightclub and regularly gambling in Las Vegas between 2013 and 2017. South Korea prohibits its citizens galmbling and consuming drugs both in the country and abroad.
The Supreme Court also considered correct the verdict of the lower instance against Seungri for having sent members of organized crime groups to threaten people with whom he had a fight in a bar in 2015.
However, it canceled the 1.15 billion won (about $990,000) fine that he was originally sentenced to pay.
Seungri was tried by a military court because he enlisted in the South Korean army in March 2020, a couple of months after being formally charged with a series of crimes.
That court sentenced him in August to three years in prison and a higher military court reduced the sentence to a year and a half in January.
The Supreme Court ordered Thursday the transfer of Seungri from a military prison to a civilian prison so that he can serve the approximately 10 months of his remaining sentence.
The artist retired from show business in March 2019 after becoming a central figure in an investigation into a club in the Gangnam district of Seoul called Burning Sun.
In the second half of the last decade, the singer was chosen by the production company YG Entertainment to join the male band Bigbang, with whom he had great success starting in 2007.
In 2008 he began to release solo work as well and, in addition to continuing to appear regularly on television, he began working as an actor in movies and series in both South Korea and Japan. EFE
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