Criticism rises from the blog of the room manager Nth

Cho Ju-bin / Yonhap

By Bahk Eun-ji

Criticism is mounting against Cho Ju-bin, the mastermind of a notorious online sex blackmail ring, who has been sentenced to 42 years in prison. Cho now blogs in an effort to plead not guilty and speak out against the justice system while he is still in prison.

Cho, who is currently serving his prison term at the Seoul Detention Center, started a blog on portal site Naver last August while his appeal was ongoing.

Billed as “Cho Ju-bin’s blog,” a total of six posts were posted, including his reasons for calling and his apologies.

Cho was sentenced to 42 years in prison by the Supreme Court last October for organizing a criminal network with 38 accomplices, blackmailing 74 victims, including minors, into filming pornographic content and distributing the material to members of a telegram paying. chat room, called Baksabang.

While admitting the charges of producing and distributing sexual abuse material, he claimed that the chat room was not a criminal network and that some evidence was collected illegally, and therefore, he was not guilty. , but the Supreme Court rejected his appeal.

In the blog, the writer, who identifies as Cho, said, “I opened this blog and this Instagram account as channels to express my opinion, which is the truth.”

In an article published on January 7, Cho wrote, “Can you understand this, or do you think the matter was resolved 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 had been unjustly and heavily sentenced.

“The condemnation against me is a statement that the law has been rejected by public opinion,” Cho wrote.

The Department of Justice began trying to find out how Cho was able to run the blog while he was in prison. A ministry official said it appears someone else is posting letters Cho sent to the blog instead.

As the controversy escalated, Naver blocked his blog.

An official from Naver’s public relations team said, “After receiving a number of reports on Cho’s blog, we have decided to shut down the site due to his violations of our operating policy.”

According to the Naver Blog’s operating policy, the publication of articles can only be restricted if there is a risk of encouraging crimes by glorifying criminals or supporting crimes, or if there is the specific expression a physical threat to another that causes serious physical harm.

Naver said the blog posts contain content exposing victims’ information, which could cause them further harm.