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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – A South Korean military court on Thursday sentenced disgraced K-pop star Seungri to three years in prison for crimes including providing prostitutes to foreign businessmen .
The Defense Ministry said the former boy band Big Bang member was also fined 1.15 billion won ($ 989,000). He was taken into custody following the ruling by a military court in Yongin, near Seoul.
Seungri, real name Lee Seung-hyun, was indicted in January 2020 on several counts, including organizing illegal sex services for business investors from Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong from 2015 to 2016. He was also found guilty of embezzling funds from a Seoul nightclub he ran and violating laws banning overseas gambling by betting heavily in overseas casinos from 2013 to 2017. He has denied most of the charges.
His case was transferred to a military court after enlisting in the military in March last year for 21 months of military service, a requirement for most able-bodied men in South Korea due to the threat of rival North Korea.
The Yonhap News Agency reported that Seungri appeared in court in combat uniform and repeatedly shook his head as the judge announced the verdict.
Before her fall from grace, Seungri was one of K-pop’s biggest stars due to the success of Big Bang, which drew many fans in Asia and other parts of the world after her debut in 2006. Forbes magazine reported in 2016 that the group had made a pre-tax profit of $ 44 million the previous year.
Seungri left the group in 2019 after media reported the prostitution charges. His case is one of the many scandals that have rocked the entertainment industry in South Korea in recent years.
In 2019, singer Jung Joon-young was sentenced to six years in prison and former boy group member Choi Jong-hoon to five years after being convicted of illicit sex with a woman unable to resist.
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