Military authorities revealed Seungri would be transferring to a civilian prison after his discharge from the military on Thursday, June 9. The military will move the former Big Bang member to Yeoju Prison, which is close to the military prison in Incheon City, Gyeonggi Province.
Seungri received a sentence of one year and six months in prison for solicitation of illegal prostitution and overseas gambling. So, as he will only stay for eight months in the civilian prison, fans are angry over his shorte sentence.
According to the Military Service Act, via AllKpop, a soldier must be transferred to the wartime labor service if the sentence is one year and six months in prison or imprisonment without prison labor. The former idol originally received a sentence of three years in jail and was arrested during the first trial.
However, the High Military Court validated his conviction and reduced his sentence to one year and six months or half of the original verdict during the appeals trial. Now, Seungri is set to be out of prison in February 2023.
He was originally scheduled to be discharged from the military in September 2021 after receiving his first trial sentence. However, he was put on hold under the Military Service Act and was trialed in a higher court as a soldier.
This meant that he would only serve eight months in the civilian prison at the time of the transfer. With that said, many netizens shared their reaction to the issue in a discussion on News Naver.
One fan said the former K-pop star should stay in prison until 2323, while others claimed his sentence of one year and six months was just right. Another stressed he had so much money that he couldn't even spend for the rest of his life.
Another chimed in and explained that if an ordinary person did what he did, they would be in prison for a decade. "His sentencing is so light compared to what he did," one netizen revealed.
Seungri was accused of mediating prostitution for investors in Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong and acquired prostitution for himself to attract investments for clubs and financial investment businesses from December 2015 to January 2016, per Soompi.
He also embezzled 528 million won or over $400,000 from the club Burning Sun, pretending he would use it to pay for Monkey Museum, another bar in Gangnam. He also pocketed 20 million or more than $15,000 of company funds from Yuri Holdings that he would allegedly use to pay lawyers for employees.
In addition, Seungri was also charged for using 2.2 billion won or $1.7 million for gambling at a hotel casino in Las Vegas and not reporting his loan of $1 million of chips for gambling funds. Lastly, he was indicted for threatening someone with gangsters.
