Former BIGBANG Seungri Denies Majority of Charges Against Him in Latest Court Hearing
Previously, former BIGBANG Seungri was indicted of violating the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, violating the Food Sanitation Act, violating the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes, mediating prostitution, acquiring prostitution services, habitual gambling, and embezzlement.
In January 2021, Seungri and Yoo In Suk was also charged with special violence instigation.
In his latest hearing, Seungri has denied the charges brought against him.
Former BIGBANG Seungri Denies Majority of the Charges Against Him in Latest Court Hearing
On June 30 KST, the former BIGBANG member attended his latest trial hearing in relation to the ongoing investigation on the "Burning Sun" scandal at the military court located in Yongin.
During the hearing, Seungri had denied his charges of mediating prostitution, acquiring prostitution services, embezzlement, habitual gambling, and the filming of illegal hidden camera footage.
Regarding the case of Seungri serving as the co-chairman of Yuri Holdings alongside Yoo In Suk, Seungri states that he didn't establish Yuri Holdings with Yoo In Suk from the beginning, and that he was preparing to establish Mildang Pocha alongside his friends.
"I didn't know a lot about finance, accounting, and the documents, so I had consulted Yoo In Suk regarding it and became a part of Yuri Holdings. Yuri Holdings was already a business that was being prepared by Yoo In Suk and other executives, and I just went with it," said former BIGBANG Seungri.
According to Seungri in regards to mediating prostitution, he claims that he didn't know anything and only found out during the investigation.
About the message he wrote in a group chat during the time a businesswoman from Taiwan visited the country, "[Please prepare] a woman who gives well," Seungri explained that he thinks it was a typo because of the autocorrect on his iPhone, as he remembers saying "people who know how to have fun" instead.
Former BIGBANG Seungri also stressed that he had no involvement in calling prostitutes, and refers to when it was revealed that the women who were at the scene were neither prostitutes nor his acquaintances, but someone else's from the chatroom, during the investigation.
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Back in 2015, he was suspected of preparing prosititutes for Japanese businessmen during a party. Seungri denied the allegation and explained that he had invited Koji Aoyama and his wife, as well as other foreign friends as a way to repay people all over the world for celebrating his birthday.
"I had only paid attention to taking care of my acquaintances, and only found out about the women during the investigation," said Seungri.
He also cited that there is no reason for the people mentioned to have received sexual favors in relation to business.
In addition, Seungri reveals that Yoo In Suk had never informed him about sending prostitutes, and that the latter's action were extremely personal.
He added that he doesn't know how its related to his business, and he had no direct involvement in it.
"Just because messages were shared in a group chat, it doesn't mean that I'm aware of everything," defended Seungri.
Regarding the prostitution charges, Seungri denied them and said that he doesn't remember having heard Yoo In Suk say that he'll send a woman, as he was being interrogated a lot at the time, and that he had only admitted to it because the woman involved stated it was.
"However, I read the statement after I had been indicted, and it was too unreliable. I was young and popular at the time, so I wasn't in any position to be paying money to maintain relationships with people," Seungri added.
Regarding his involvement in the filming of illegal hidden camera footage, he said he just posted a photo from a spam message that he had received from an employee at an entertainment bar in China without giving it much thought, and that he had never sent a picture like that before and taken one.
For his embezzlement charges, Seungri said that he thought it was right for Yuri Holdings to pay the consultation fee for Monkey Museum's legal advice. He added that it was a decision for the company, and not for the CEO or the DJ. It was out of concern as the damage would be severe if the fact that something unpleasant happened at Seungri's club became known.
Former BIGBANG Seungri and Jung Joon Young's Chatroom
Regarding his involvement in the chatroom created by Jung Joon Young, Seungri said that the message are not everything in his life. He is part of more than 10 chatrooms and uses around five other social media apps besides KakaoTalk, and in just an hour, 500 messages get accumulated. "Just because I receive a message, it doesn't mean that I have seen or knew about them all," explained Seungri.
Seungri added that there had been an exchange of inappropriate actions and words since the chatroom was only between friends, and he didn't know that it would be revealed and apologizes to the public.
Meanwhile, Seungri's parents were also in attendance during the hearing and watched from the audience. Another trial would be held including the military prosecutor, lawyer, and judge's interrogations regarding Seungri's charges in relation to the violating of special laws and special violence instigation.
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Written by Robyn Joan
