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3 1/2-year sentence handed down for illegally filming female students, women in public

Published: 09 May. 2025, 11:15

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A person in their 30s who used a modified iPhone to illegally film female students and other women has been sentenced to three years and six months in prison, according to legal insiders on Friday.

The Chuncheon District Court’s Wonju Branch Criminal Division found the defendant guilty of violating the Act on the Protection of Children and Youth Against Sexual Offenses and the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes.

The court also ordered the defendant to complete 40 hours of a sexual violence treatment program and barred them from working at institutions involving children, youth or people with disabilities for five years.

The modified iPhone and Apple Watch used in the crimes were confiscated.

According to the court ruling, the defendant operated a shuttle vehicle for a private after-school academy from January 2020 to Oct. 29, 2024. During this period, the defendant used the altered device to secretly film the bodies of 17 female students — some of them minors — on 141 occasions, producing illegal sexual exploitation material.

The defendant was also found guilty of filming the bodies of 261 women in public spaces without their consent on 196 occasions between June 28, 2021, and October 2024.

One incident took place on Oct. 11, 2024, when the defendant entered a store, pretended to work on a laptop and filmed a woman sitting nearby for nine minutes, focusing on her upper legs beneath her skirt.

In a separate set of offenses, prosecutors said the defendant filmed women on 16 occasions at a private study hall between May 31 and Oct. 26, 2019.

The defendant had previously been caught in 2018 filming women in public with a phone camera and was placed under a suspension of indictment by the Chuncheon District Prosecutors’ Office’s Wonju branch.

After that incident, the defendant purchased a modified iPhone online to avoid detection.

“The defendant not only created illegal sexual exploitation material targeting their own students but also committed these acts against a large number of unspecified individuals,” the court stated in its sentencing. “The crimes are serious and the volume of illegal footage is considerable.”

It added, however, that “the defendant admitted to the crimes and there is no evidence that the footage was distributed. These factors were taken into account in determining the sentence.”

Both the prosecution and the defendant have appealed the ruling.

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
BY KIM JI-HYE [[email protected]]