During a previously held appellate court, the perpetrators, a 66-year-old Han, a 62-year-old Noh, a 50-year-old Choi, and a 45-year-old Jang, were each sentenced to serve time in prison. The Supreme Court announced its final verdict on September 26, announcing that the original verdict stands. Han was sentenced to four years in prison, Noh to three years, Choi to two years, and Jang, charged with attempting rape, to two years in prison and two years of probation.
The four began sexually assaulting 'A', who was 17-years-old at the time, back in summer of 2012. In June 2012, Han drove 'A' to an empty lot and forced himself on her, and later, Choi dragged 'A' to a motel and raped her.
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In winter of that same year, Noh also took 'A' to a vacant lot and raped her and is also suspected of blackmailing her when she tried to report the incident to the police. Police also discovered that Han used 'A's intellectual disability to his advantage to trick, bully, and scare her into submission. The company that the four were working for eventually heard rumors about the rapes, leading the police to launch an internal investigation.
The rulings from the first and second trials had clashed, as there was some confusion over whether the four's sexual acts against 'A' would still count as rape when the victim accepted money and food in return.
During the first trial, the court deemed the first instances of assault as rape but did not categorize the acts that occurred afterwards as rape because there was no "force exerted." However, this ruling was overruled in the second trial with a reasoning that read as such: "If the victim was taken advantage of for her intellectual disability to accede [to the sexual assualt] with money and food, then even though it did not occur with an oppression of her free will, we must deem that force was exerted."
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