TV personality found guilty of beating wife

By Lee Kyung-min

Seo Se-won

A district court Thursday sentenced TV personality Seo Se-won to six months in prison, suspended for two years, for assaulting his wife during an argument last year.

The Seoul Central District Court ruled that the husband was guilty of physically harming his wife, Seo Jung-hee.

“Seo Se-won admitted to his crime, evidenced by surveillance camera recordings, and the degree of physical damage sustained by the wife is not at all negligible,” a judge said.

The judge said that Seo did not show enough contrition, and blamed his wife for framing him as a violent husband with a pattern of abusive behavior.

“Rather than offering a sincere apology, Seo kept on attempting to assign the blame to the wife,” the judge said.

However, the judge added that Seo’s violent behavior was a spontaneous act, providing grounds for mitigation.

“Seo did not act with premeditation, and was in an agitated state during a heated argument with her. I took into account that his actions were portrayed in way that might have been taken out of context,” the judge said.

Seo was indicted in November on charges of assault and battery after surveillance camera footage showing violence was made public in May.

The footage showed the moment his wife was thrown to the floor after Seo pushed her and then she was dragged by the leg from the hallway into the elevator with three witnesses in the lobby of a building in Cheongdam-dong in southern Seoul.

The wife had to receive three-weeks of treatment in the hospital for cuts and bruises.

The couple reportedly began arguing because she insisted on going to a different church than the one he attends.

After 32 years of marriage, she filed for a divorce in July. The Seoul Family Court is reviewing the case.