Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Following Mnet’s confirmation that production staff from ‘Produce X 101‘ had arrest warrants issued for them, it has now been confirmed that producer Ahn Joon Young has been arrested.
A Seoul court approved an arrest warrant Tuesday for a producer of a popular K-pop TV show over vote-rigging allegations.
An additional charge of dereliction of duty was added to the producer for allegedly accepting bribes in exchange for the manipulation.
The arrest warrant reportedly came after the PD tried to destroy evidence, as well as following the discovery of bribery in the form of millions of won spent at an adult entertainment facility by officials from a company.
Police decided to apply for an arrest warrant for PD Ahn Joon Young on October 30, after they discovered that he attempted to destroy evidence such as text messages and other related documents after allegations of vote rigging surfaced following the X1 member vote reveal.
SBS also stated that they confirmed that PD Ahn Joon Young received entertainment from an unknown number of entertainment company officials at an adult entertainment establishment, compromising the integrity of the show. Police raided the adult entertainment establishment in question in early October to obtain evidence. It has been made known that another charge of breach of trust was given to PD Ahn Joon Young after police determined that he received millions of won worth of entertainment at the adult entertainment establishments, and was entertained numerous times. It has not yet been confirmed whether the company that provided PD Ahn Joon Young with the entertainment services ended up having a member in X1 or not.
But he wasn’t the only person who got an arrest warrant. Two other producers from the show, as well as one Starship Entertainment executive had those issued for them as well.
On November 5, No Cut News reported that the police requested travel bans on CJ ENM’s PD (producing director) Ahn Joon Young, CP (chief producer) “Kim,” and PD “Lee” as well as Starship Entertainment’s vice president “Kim” on November 1. The police had also requested arrest warrants for these individuals on October 30, and they were questioned on November 5 to determine the validity of the warrants. The court’s decision regarding the warrants will be announced later on this day. On the same day, Mnet released a statement apologizing for causing controversy and affirming their willingness to cooperate with investigations.
Of those four, two had their warrants approved.
Following a hearing earlier in the day, the Seoul Central District Court issued the warrant to formally detain the program director in a scandal involving “Produce X 101,” a fan-voted idol competition show that ran on cable channel Mnet. The chief producer of the show was also detained.
The court said it accepted the need to approve the warrants considering the role played by the two in the scandal and the severity of the accusations raised.
While he ultimately wasn’t arrested (which doesn’t mean he’s out of trouble), the last thing Starship needs right now is such a serious link to wrongdoing in this case, and it’s hard not to wonder about their exposure when a lot of the questions about company involvement have seemed to revolve around them.
