Police Dropped the Case, but... Professor Accused of Same-Sex Molestation and Illegal Filming Faces Trial

According to The Financial News, a current university professor accused of sexually assaulting a man and filming him with his mobile phone will stand trial after prosecutors conducted a supplementary investigation.
The legal community said on the 16th that the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office indicted a man in his 40s, identified only as A, without detention last November on charges of quasi-indecent assault and illegal filming under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes.
A, an adjunct professor at a college of arts and physical education at a university in Gyeonggi Province, is alleged to have first met a 25-year-old man, B, in September 2023 after connecting through a dating application. Investigators found that they met at a restaurant in Gangdong-gu, Seoul, and drank together at the restaurant and a bar before checking into a nearby lodging facility. During this time, A is accused of molesting B while he was asleep and intoxicated, and filming him six times with his mobile phone. Prosecutors concluded that B had been in a state incapable of resisting.
The following month, in October of the same year, B met A again at a bar in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, and, after drinking, moved to a nearby lodging facility. Prosecutors believe that on this occasion as well, A groped B without his consent and filmed the act four additional times.
B filed a criminal complaint with police around October 2024. A has consistently maintained that both the sexual contact and the filming were consensual.
Police later decided in January last year not to refer the case to prosecutors, citing insufficient evidence. Prosecutors initially reviewed the non-referral records sent by police and did not order a reinvestigation, but after the victim filed an objection, they launched their own supplementary investigation. A's trial is scheduled to open at 10:10 a.m. on the 19th at the Seoul Eastern District Court.
yesji@fnnews.com Kim Ye-ji Reporter