"Did you steal something?" 60-Year-Old Searches 20s Woman's Body Mistaking Theft, Found Guilty

Body search by touching both side pockets and back pockets of pants

A part-time worker who searched a female customer’s body after mistakenly believing she had stolen items from a convenience store was sentenced guilty.

According to Yonhap News on the 15th, Judge Jeong Sun-yeol of the Busan District Court Criminal Division 11 sentenced a man in his 60s, Mr. A, who was charged with body search, to six months in prison with a two-year probation.

On the 8th, an employee is arranging products at a GS25 convenience store in Seoul. (This photo is not directly related to the article.) [Photo by Pixabay]

According to the court, on April 1 at 11:58 p.m., Mr. A, who was working at a convenience store in Busan, thought that a woman in her 20s, Ms. B, had secretly stolen items after she entered and left the store.

Mr. A brought Ms. B back to the convenience store. Despite Ms. B continuously expressing refusal, he searched her body by touching both sides of the pockets and back pockets of her pants with both hands. However, the woman had not stolen anything, and the incident occurred due to the man’s misunderstanding.

The court stated, “The crime is serious as the victim’s body was searched under the mistaken belief of theft, and considering the embarrassment, humiliation, and mental distress the victim must have felt in the presence of other customers. However, the sentence takes into account that the crime was committed rashly due to a misunderstanding of the facts and was not planned or malicious.”

Meanwhile, a woman in the United States who was excessively body-searched received a settlement. The woman was visiting a California prison to see her husband when she was subjected to a strip search and sexual assault. The California court ruled that the correctional authorities must pay $5.6 million in damages to Christina Cardenas, the American woman who filed a lawsuit against the correctional authorities.

At the time, the prison ordered Cardenas to remove her clothes and searched her body according to a search warrant. According to Cardenas’s attorney, despite X-ray and scan tests confirming she was not carrying anything, an internal body search was conducted at the hospital. Cardenas said, “I faced hardship even before seeing my husband,” and “I was greatly shocked by what happened there and suffered trauma.”