K-pop stars Jung Joon-young and Choi Jong-hoon will spend years behind bars after a South Korean court found them guilty of gang-raping drunk, unconscious women, according to new reports.
Both artists were convicted of “special quasi-raping,” referring to multiple people conspiring to have illicit sexual intercourse with someone who is unconscious or unable to resist, according to a court press release obtained by CBS News.
Jung, 30, raped women who were “drunk and unable to resist, filmed them nude and having sex, then spread it on a group chat,” Judge Kang Seong-soo charged, according to the BBC.
He was sentenced to six years in prison.
“We can’t imagine the pain the victims might have felt who found out later,” the judge said, adding that Jung seemed to view his victims as a tool for pleasure.
Jung, a singer-songwriter who rose to fame on the TV talent show Superstar K4, said in his final testimony that he was sorry for his actions, according to the report.
“I deeply regret my foolishness and I feel great remorse,” he said. “From now on, I shall only … live in remorse.”
Jung quit his music career in March after ‘fessing up to secretly filming women and distributing the footage, the BBC reported.
Choi, also 30 and a former member of the band F.T. Island, whose albums topped the charts in South Korea, received a five-year sentence.
He “did not feel remorse after mass-raping drunken victims,” the court said, according to the report.
Both men must complete 80 hours of sexual violence treatment courses and are prohibited from working with children, the outlet reported.
Authorities were first clued into the case against the two men during a separate police investigation into K-pop superstar Seungri, who was allegedly included in Jung’s group chat, the BBC reported.
One message posted by Jung to the chat on the Korean messaging app KakaoTalk, said, “You raped her haha,” CBS reported, citing Korean broadcaster SBS News.
The discovery of that group led to Jung’s March arrest.
Seungri, of the boyband Big Bang, faces charges of supplying prostitutes to potential business investors — allegations that he has denied, according to CBS News.