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Steamy petition: 'My jailed husband didn't touch her buttocks'
By Ko Dong-hwan
This closed circuit television footage shows the encounter inside a restaurant between a man and a woman after which the woman accused the man of grabbing her buttocks.
By Ko Dong-hwan
A wife's claim that her husband, recently jailed for sexual harassment, had been wrongfully accused has drawn many sympathizers on the presidential petition site.
Her claim appeared on Cheong Wa Dae's public petition site on Sept. 6. In three days, the post has attracted more than 224,000 anonymous votes, surpassing the 200,000 cap and therefore obligating the presidential office's official response. The post, according to the site's regulations, has one month to draw further support.
The man, father of a son, 8, was jailed for six months on Sept. 5. The man was also ordered to undergo 40 hours of sexual crime therapy and banned from working in places involving children and youths for three years, according to a court's ruling statement posted on Bobaedream, an online community where the wife first revealed the case.
The wife also posted on the community site
showing the scene where the man allegedly grabbed the buttocks of a woman who accused and sued him. The footage, filmed in restaurant in Nov. 2017, shows the defendant standing among a crowd in suits and the plaintiff walking toward the man. As the woman nears, the man turns back and walks past her.
The critical moment, however, is partially blocked by a wall fixture of shoe cabinet, making it impossible to discern whether he actually grabbed her buttocks. The video further shows the woman immediately catching up with the man apparently to accuse him of touching her.
“I have never seen my husband sobbing so bitterly in our 10 year marriage,” the woman said on the petition site, adding that her husband was heart-broken at the court decision.
She said her husband had attended several court hearings until September without telling her. The plaintiff demanded the defendant pay 10 million won for settlement but he refused, trusting the court would acquit him.
The court's ruling statement from Sept. 5 says the plaintiff “explained in a coherent manner how the defendant sexually harassed her” and that “the accused was not regretful of his wrongdoing and didn't seem to want to seek forgiveness from the accuser.”
“I know the recent '#Metoo movement' has made all sexually related issues very sensitive but, even as a woman, I cannot understand her and how she so easily turned an innocent man into a sexual harasser,” the wife said, criticizing Korean anti-sex crime laws that “lopsidedly supported women over men.”