Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Okay, wow, since we last checked in on the Lee Jin Wook sexual assault case, a lot of stuff has happened.
Lee Jin Wook’s agency’s reaction to the sexual assault charges were to file false accusation charges, and both sides agreed that they were not dating.
Clarifying previous reports regarding Lee Jin Wook’s relationship with “A,” the agency says, “Lee Jin Wook was introduced to the plaintiff through a long time mutual acquaintance, and while Lee Jin Wook had planned to continue meeting her with interest, they are not boyfriend and girlfriend, as was reported in some news.”
The statement says, “[‘A’] and Lee Jin Wook met for the first time that day. They’re not dating, and they weren’t meeting with interest, either. The crime was committed the day that they met. This can be confirmed with their phone records.”
What does the alleged victim want out of this? An apology, apparently.
“All we want is a sincere apology from the defendant. Right now the victim and the assailant are being switched. We won’t stand by for a second attack.”
Lee Jin Wook is not gonna be giving that apology, however, and went to police to refute everything.
During questioning, Lee Jin Wook completely refuted all claims made by “A,” and, according to the police, gave a detailed account of what happened. He claimed that the sexual relations with “A” were consensual, denying the sexual assault allegations. Lee Jin Wook submitted screen captures of texts that he exchanged with “A,” and consented to taking a lie detector test at a later date as well as a mouth swab for DNA, which will be compared with the underwear submitted by “A.”
Meanwhile, the alleged victim submitted more evidence of the alleged assault after it became clear they were not gonna get the apology they wanted.
Her legal rep said, “Yesterday (July 17), while Lee Jin Wook was being questioned at the Suseo police station, we submitted various pieces of evidence to the police, including photos of [A’s] body, bruises, damaged clothing, and photos from the scene.”
Lee Jin Wook also had a travel ban placed against him, which doesn’t mean a whole lot, but his agency C&CO ENS came out to explain anyway.
“The travel ban placed on Lee Jin Wook is simply to expedite the investigation, and has nothing to do with issues of credibility or honesty. Long before the initial sexual assault allegations, Lee Jin Wook had a scheduled commercial shoot outside the country, and was to depart Korea on July 18. Lee Jin Wook, in order to minimize inconvenience to those around him from the lawsuit, had planned to go through with the shoot and go to the police station for questioning afterward. However, the investigation team laid down the travel ban to avoid any misunderstandings around perceived leniency.”
More importantly, though, his agency is playing the PR game and has fleshed out exactly what their case will be.
“We felt we needed to come out and tell the truth, due to all the false claims made by the plaintiff and her legal representative. The plaintiff claimed in a press release that she had not met Lee Jin Wook with interest. However, during their dinner on the evening of July 12, she expressed immense interest, saying that she was a ‘huge fan,’ and that she had ‘liked him for a long time.’”
That … doesn’t seem to mean a whole lot. Both sides seem to agree that they were not dating and that they met for the first time on the day the alleged sexual assault occurred. So whether or not she was actually anticipating meeting him beforehand or whether she was interested in him after meeting him is completely irrelevant.
According to the agency, the day following the dinner (the day after the alleged sexual assault), the plaintiff sent messages to the mutual acquaintance that had introduced her to Lee Jin Wook, talking happily about the soon-to-open franchise in Gangnam that the three of them had agreed to go to together. “If she had been a victim of sexual assault as stated in her lawsuit, we don’t think it’s possible for her to have acted this way,” said C&CO ENS.
If that turns out to be true then that’s a red flag. While true that one can’t predict the behavior of rape victims, if it turns out she did send texts about going on a group date together afterward, it definitely wouldn’t be the best look for her case.
“It’s suspicious that the plaintiff reported the assault on July 14, a full day after the alleged sexual assault, and it’s also hard to understand why, although she said she visited the hospital before filing the complaint, she only submitted the injury report on July 17, after Lee Jin Wook filed a complaint of false accusation.”
So the company basically closed things out out by trying to take advantage of the willfully ignorant.
Not odd at all that it was filed a day after the alleged sexual assault took place, really. And her side has already explained why they only submitted more evidence later: because they wanted an apology and it became clear they weren’t going to get it. Regardless, what difference does it make if the evidence submitted is valid anyway?
Lucky for his company, most people are indeed willfully ignorant.
Anyway, this has quickly escalated into a mess, and I think a lot of the judgment will fall on what’s revealed about the circumstantial evidence involved here. As always when it comes to these cases, I wouldn’t expect anything to happen to him legally unless he was caught on video or something (then again, Park Si Hoo showed even that’s meaningless), but the results of the investigation should reveal a lot about what might’ve actually gone down.
