Cho Doo-soon broke the antenna on his electronic monitoring device—but no one noticed for six days

[Financial News] Child rapist Cho Doo-soon damaged an electronic monitoring device installed at his residence, but it has emerged that the Ministry of Justice’s probation office did not discover the damage until six days later.
According to an indictment, court rulings and other documents submitted to Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Dong-a by the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Court on the 7th, Cho Doo-soon broke the external antenna of a home monitoring device installed in the bedroom of his residence in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, at around 11:28 a.m. on June 3 last year.
Investigators found that Cho committed the offense while under the delusion that “the antenna was sending radio waves into my brain.”
The LTE communication signal strength of the home monitoring device dropped sharply immediately after the damage, but the probation officer did not discover it until six days later, on the 9th of the same month, while conducting an on-site inspection inside the residence.
From March to June last year, Cho committed a total of six offenses related to the electronic device: four violations of restrictions on leaving home, one case of damaging the device, and one attempted case of damage.
In this case, it was accepted that Cho was in a diminished mental state due to dementia. The court recognized his diminished mental capacity but sentenced him to imprisonment and medical treatment and custody, taking into account the risk of reoffending.
In January this year, the court of first instance (the Ansan Branch of the Suwon District Court) sentenced Cho to eight months in prison and medical treatment and custody on charges including violating the Act on the Attachment of Electronic Devices, etc. Last June, the court of second instance (the Suwon High Court) also upheld the original ruling.
The court said it set the sentence after considering, among other things, that although he had reoffended during the repeat-offender period, he had not been out for long and returned without resisting the probation officer’s intervention.
Cho had previously been indicted for kidnapping and sexually assaulting an elementary school student in 2008, causing serious injuries. His diminished mental capacity due to intoxication was recognized, and he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He was released in December 2020. In December 2023, he was sentenced to three months in prison for violating an order banning nighttime outings and served the sentence.
[email protected] Seong Min-seo Reporter