The 30-year-old singer from common boyband BIGBANG, who retired from showbusiness because the scandal mounted and later enlisted within the army, was discovered responsible on all 9 counts in opposition to him, a defence ministry official informed AFP.
BIGBANG loved widespread fame following their 2006 debut and Seungri — actual title Lee Seung-hyun — went on to grow to be a profitable businessman.
He was convicted of arranging intercourse companies for potential buyers in his enterprise, in addition to abroad playing at luxurious casinos in Las Vegas involving illicit international trade transactions.
“It’s onerous to see the defendant was not conscious of monetary funds paid to the ladies for intercourse,” media reviews quoted choose Hwang Min-je as saying.
“It seems that he carried out systematic sexual prostitution.”
Seungri had modified his testimony underneath police questioning and in court docket, he added, and “lacked credibility”.
His unlawful playing was “severe” given his standing as a celeb and it went on over an extended interval.
The singer was additionally ordered to forfeit 1.15 billion gained (round $1 million).
In keeping with the fees he organized prostitutes for international buyers on 24 events over 5 months from September 2015.
The investigation into the scandal surrounding him uncovered a spate of allegations in opposition to different musicians and personnel at YG Entertainment — Seungri’s former company and one of many largest Okay-pop administration companies.
It prompted the company’s CEO Yang Hyun-suk to step down, dealing with probes of his personal into illicit playing.
Seungri was a member of a cellular chat room the place Okay-pop singer-songwriter Jung Joon-young — now serving a five-year sentence for gang rape and different offences — distributed movies of sexual assaults and different encounters.
The revelations rocked the Okay-pop trade and have become the highest-profile crime involving hidden cameras secretly filming ladies, often known as “molka” in South Korea.
Jung appeared as a witness in Seungri’s trial and testified he was conscious that an grownup leisure supervisor who Seungri knew had supplied the ladies.
Response to the decision was swift on Thursday, with many customers on-line saying Seungri’s punishment was too gentle for the offences.
“Whereas it’s lucky he’s lastly being jailed, the time period is just too quick,” a person on Naver, the nation’s largest portal, posted.
One other added: “It ought to’ve been 30 years, not three.”
The decision got here a month earlier than he was resulting from be discharged from his necessary army service.
All able-bodied South Korean males are obliged to fulfil round two years of army service to defend the nation from nuclear-armed North Korea, with which it stays technically at warfare.
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