Chuncheon District Court Sentences Defendant to One Year in Prison, Suspends Sentence for Two Years
A woman in her 30s was convicted of making a false accusation after she, harboring resentment over a physical altercation and subsequent legal battle with a neighbor due to apartment noise complaints, falsely accused her neighbor of sexual assault.
According to Yonhap News on September 20, the Chuncheon District Court Criminal Division 2 (Presiding Judge Kim Taeseong) sentenced Ms. A (32), who was indicted on charges of making a false accusation, to one year in prison with a two-year suspended sentence and ordered her to complete 80 hours of community service.
Ms. A was brought to trial on charges of making a false accusation after she claimed to Chuncheon Police Station in March last year that her neighbor, Mr. B, with whom she had been in conflict over apartment noise, intentionally made sexual contact with her buttocks with his genitals while she was trying to break up a physical fight between Mr. B and her father in the apartment hallway in February last year. Ms. A committed this act out of spite after her husband, who was present at the scene, was reported to the police by Mr. B for joint assault and property damage under the Act on the Punishment of Violent Acts.
She repeated the same claim during an interview at the Women and Juvenile Affairs Division of Chuncheon Police Station in April of the same year. However, a police investigation found that there had been no physical contact between the two during the altercation.
The court stated, "False accusations not only cause significant financial and psychological distress to the accused but also hinder the fair exercise of the state's criminal justice authority, so it is necessary to punish such acts strictly." Regarding the sentencing, the court explained, "The sentence was determined by taking into account that the defendant eventually admitted her wrongdoing and confessed to the crime."
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