The Supreme Court of South Korea finalized former Big Bang member Seungri's sentence on Thursday, May 26. The retired K-pop star received one and a half years in prison due to his offenses linked to the 2019 Burning Sun scandal.
The Supreme Court of South Korea concluded that the sentence Seungri received was from the High Military Court. It was the result of his appeal trial in January of this year.
AllKpop noted the controversial idol was previously indicted for nine criminal charges in January 2020. It included illegal prostitution solicitation, overseas gambling, spreading illegally filmed sexual content, embezzlement, threatening and assault, among others.
He received a three-year prison sentence during his initial military court trial after being found guilty of the nine charges. However, the 31-year-old and his legal counsel filed for an appeal, reducing his sentence to one and a half years.
Now, the Supreme Court of South Korea has finalized his sentence at one year and six months in prison.
For starters, the former singer-songwriter admitted guilt for his crimes back in January, resulting in a reduced jail sentence. During the appeal trial at the High Court for Armed Forces, he also expressed his remorse.
Seungri was already enlisted in military service during the investigation, so the trial was held in a military court, per Rappler.
The South China Morning Post reported the court granted him a halved prison sentence with a fine of 1,156,900,000 won or about $956,668.36. He originally received a three-year sentence in prison in August 2021 by the military court.
Some of the laws he breached are the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, Food Sanitation Act, Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes and the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, to name a few.
Seungri denied all these crimes, except the violation of the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, during his first trial.
This scandal began when he got involved in the Burning Sun scandal in 2019. The huge controversy involved a number of high-profile personalities, who also received their respective convictions for the crimes committed in the said nightclub, where he served as a public relations director.
The Seoul Police Department launched an investigation in February 2019 and named Seungri a person of interest. Police alleged he offered prostitutes to the Burning Sun investors, which Big Bang's agency, YG Entertainment, denied and claimed the whole story was only fabricated.
