Unrequited Love Cafe Girl's SNS Photo 'Stolen Download'... Stalker Who Wrote "My Angel" Letter

Downloaded Victim's Account Photo and Printed
Court: "Not a General Expression of Favor"... Fined

A man in his 30s who unilaterally developed an affection for a female employee working at a cafe and stalked her by downloading photos from her social networking service (SNS) account and handing them to her along with a letter was sentenced to a fine.

According to reports from Yonhap News and others on the 28th, Kim Ji-yeon, chief judge of the Criminal Division 6 at Gwangju District Court, announced that A (38), who was indicted for violating the Act on the Punishment of Stalking Crimes, was sentenced to a fine of 30 million won. A was also ordered to complete an 80-hour stalking treatment program.

A first visited a cafe in Gwangju where the victim B worked at the end of October 2021. He returned to the cafe on November 11 of the same year and February 14 of last year, giving B stick-shaped snacks and chocolates. In April of last year, he met B near the cafe and said, "It's been a while," to which B only replied, "Hello," and then left the place.

The photo is not related to the specific content of the article [Image source=Pixabay]

Two months later, in June of last year, A handed B an envelope containing printed photos of B’s face that A had found and printed from B’s SNS account, along with a letter. In the letter, A referred to B as "my angel OO" and unilaterally expressed his affection by writing a hypothetical scenario of dating B.

During the trial, A claimed, "Based on the victim’s attitude so far, I did not realize she disliked me," and "I was clumsy in expressing my affection." However, the court’s judgment was different. It was deemed difficult to view both the act of secretly finding and printing photos from the SNS and the content of the letter as ordinary expressions of affection. Also, the court found that the victim only responded with a polite "Hello" when greeted by a customer she met outside the cafe, and that the two never had a conversation or formed any intimacy beyond that.

Chief Judge Kim pointed out, "A only perceives it as being rejected after expressing affection and does not reflect on his wrongdoing." He added, "However, considering A’s mental illness symptoms and the fact that his family promised to take care of him to prevent recidivism," explaining the reason for the fine sentence.