Policeman convicted of accessing cellphone messages

A Seoul court on Wednesday handed a former policeman an eight-month suspended prison sentence for accessing a woman’s mobile phone messages and leaking some investigative information.

The ex-policeman, surnamed Tak, was dispatched to a street in Cheongdam-dong, southern Seoul, to attend to a drunken woman in September 2013. After escorting the woman to her home, he pocketed her smartphone, according to the Seoul Central District Court.

He accessed the KakaoTalk messages between the woman and her boyfriend via the application on his personal computer. The smartphone also reportedly contained a video clip of sexual activity between them and photos of her nude.

The court also cited additional charges, raised by the prosecution, on the 39-year-old defendant, who leaked the police agency’s internal information to a most wanted criminal in September 2012.

Tak, who was working for Seoul Gangnam Police Station, was found to have privately informed the most wanted fugitive, surnamed Jeon, residing in Thailand, of the fact that he had been put on the wanted list.

In its verdict, the court said that “it was an apparent leakage even if the fugitive had already assumed his status as wanted (before Tak’s notification). Tak critically neglected his duties as a police officer.”

The court’s verdict made it clear that the defendant committed a breach of duty from the two practices. It added that he should have returned the phone to the woman according to legitimate procedures.

The court, however, added that it considered the circumstances that it might have been difficult for Tak to reject the request from Jeon, who was Tak’s close acquaintance.

“In addition, it does not seem that Tak had tried to misuse the woman’s private data on her phone for some other irregularities,” said the verdict.

According to the prosecution and court, the ex-policeman was found to have returned the phone to her via a third person later. The third figure was the wanted Jeon.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)