"With Consent, Genital Contact While Wearing Underwear"
Guilty Verdict Expected in 2019 An Hee-jung Case
Odongun (55, Judicial Research and Training Institute class 27), a partner lawyer at Geumseong Law Firm and one of the candidates nominated for the head of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, was found to have defended a habitual sex offender against minors in the past.
According to Yonhap News on the 3rd, candidate Oh defended a man, A, who committed sexual crimes against four minors around the age of 10, in 2018, the year after he started practicing law.
A was accused of deceiving a 12-year-old girl by pretending to be a medical student in December 2017, luring her to a lodging facility and raping her, and in March of the following year, luring a 10-year-old girl he met through mobile game chat and sexually assaulting her.
In April to May 2018, he also sent obscene messages to 9- and 10-year-old victims and attempted to take them to a lodging facility to rape them, but the attempt was unsuccessful.
During the trial, candidate Oh and A’s defense lawyers claimed innocence, arguing that "it was not rape but only genital contact over underwear with the victim’s consent," and that "it was not an inducement for rape but merely a temporary change of location."
They also argued that the search warrant issued by the court pertained only to the crime committed against one of the victims, and that evidence related to the other three victims was illegally collected and could not be used as proof of guilt.
However, the first trial court sentenced A to 10 years in prison, stating that A, a healthy adult male, committed sexual assault by assaulting the minor victim at a lodging facility far from his home, and that there were no issues with evidence collection. The Supreme Court also dismissed all of A’s appeals and confirmed the sentence.
In September 2019, candidate Oh appeared as a panelist on a broadcast news program and predicted the conviction of former Chungnam Governor Ahn Hee-jung, who was about to receive a Supreme Court ruling on charges of sexual assault against his secretary, stating, "Our society must be vigilant about crimes involving sexual assault through power."
Meanwhile, candidate Oh is from Gyeongnam and served as a judge at the Busan District Court from 1998 until his retirement in 2017, nearly 20 years, before working as a lawyer.
On the 29th of last month, at the 8th meeting of the Corruption Investigation Office head candidate recommendation committee held at the National Assembly, he was named as one of the final two candidates along with lawyer Lee Myung-soon (57, class 22), a former prosecutor.
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