Small Business Owner Secretly Gives Laxatives to Employee Saying "I Will Resign"

Non-Detention Indictment on Joint Injury Charges

The CEO of a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) who secretly mixed diarrhea-inducing powder into the drink of an employee who expressed their intention to resign has been brought to trial.

According to the prosecution on the 20th, the Criminal Division 4 of Incheon District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Yong Tae-ho) indicted A, a CEO in his 30s of an SME, and employee B on charges of joint injury under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Crimes related to Violence without detention the day before.

The incident occurred around 3:50 p.m. on April 26 last year at an SME in Seo-gu, Incheon.

A and others are accused of causing harm by making a 40-year-old employee C drink a beverage mixed with powder that induces diarrhea and abdominal pain, thereby causing abdominal pain.

C resigned from the company the month after the incident and filed a complaint with the police regarding this case. According to the police investigation, the company's internal CCTV captured A grinding suspicious pills into powder using a coffee grinder and then putting it into juice.

It was confirmed that C, who drank the juice they handed over, complained of abdominal pain and received hospital treatment.

A and others denied the charges during the police investigation, saying, "We intended to consume it ourselves" and "We did not give it to C."

The prosecution charged them, believing that A and others committed the crime after C expressed their intention to resign following a dispute with C during an overseas business trip.

A prosecution official said, "We indicted A and others in July," and added, "We will thoroughly prepare for the trial to ensure they receive punishment commensurate with their crimes."

Cases where employers take 'retaliation' out of resentment against resigned employees also occur frequently overseas.

In January 2021, in Georgia, USA, a 'coin terror' incident attracted attention where an employer, harboring resentment against an employee who resigned due to unpaid wages, paid them with 91,500 coins covered in oil.