The High Court for Armed Forces carried out the former South Korean singer songwrite Lee Seung-hyun or Sengri’s appeal trial on Wednesday.
The former member of BIG BANG, currently has nine charges including the violation of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, violation of the Food Sanitation Act, embezzlement, violation of the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes, habitual gambling, violation of the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, prostitution mediation, purchase of prostitution services, and special violence instigation.
In the appeal trial, the justice department sentenced Seungri to one year and six months in prison, which is a reduced sentence from his first sentence of three years in prison, along with a fine of 1,156,900,000 won (about Rs 7.2 Crore), after Seungri and the military prosecution had both filed appeals on his original sentence.
In the original trial, Seungri had denied eight of his nine charges excluding the violation of the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, but he acknowledged all his charges in the appeal trial and conveyed his remorse.
On March 11, 2019, Seungri departed from Big Bang and retired from the entertainment industry after allegations surfaced of him supplying prostitutes in 2015. He was indicted in 2020 after the police investigation of the Burning Sun scandal. Seungri’s military trial commenced on September 16, 2020.
Seungri is currently imprisoned after being placed under arrest by the court. He will be released after serving one year and one month more of his sentence. The third trial will be carried out by the Supreme Court of Korea.