| Cho Ju-bin / Yonhap |
By Bahk Eun-ji
Criticism is mounting of Cho Ju-bin, the mastermind of a notorious online sex blackmail ring, who was sentenced to 42 years in prison. Cho is now running a blog in an effort to plead not guilty and denounce the judiciary system while still in prison.
Cho, who is currently serving his jail term at the Seoul Detention Center, started a blog on portal site Naver last August, while his court appeal was in progress.
Introduced as "Cho Ju-bin's blog," a total of six articles were published, including his reasons for the appeal and his apology.
Cho was sentenced to 42 years in prison by the Supreme Court last October for organizing a criminal ring together with 38 accomplices, blackmailing 74 victims, including minors, into filming pornographic content, and distributing the materials to members of a pay-to-view Telegram chat room, called Baksabang.
While admitting to the charges of producing and distributing sex abuse material, he claimed that the chatroom was not a criminal ring and that some evidence had been illegally collected, and thus, he was not guilty, but the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal.
In the blog, the writer, who identifies himself as Cho, said, "I opened this blog and Instagram account as channels to express my opinion, which is the truth."
In an article posted on Jan. 7, Cho wrote, "Can you understand this, or do you think the case has been resolved in this way?" referring to the fact that he was sentenced to 42 years in prison.
He then claimed that the victims' statements were not true, and that he was unfairly, heavily sentenced.
"The sentence against me is a declaration that the law has been defeated by public opinion," Cho wrote.
The Ministry of Justice has begun trying to find out how Cho could have run the blog while he has been in prison. An official from the ministry said that it seems someone else is posting letters that Cho sent to the blog instead.
As the controversy heated up, Naver blocked his blog.
An official from Naver's public relations team said, "After receiving a number of reports about Cho's blog, we have decided to shut down the site due to its violations of our operating policy."
According to the Naver blog operating policy, the posting of articles can be restricted only if there is a risk of encouraging crimes by glorifying criminals or supporting crimes, or if there is the specific expression of a physical threat to others that poses serious physical harm.
Naver said that the posts on the blog contain content exposing victims' information, which could cause them additional harm.