Prosecutors Freeze 200 Million Won In Assets Of YouTuber Sojang Who Defamed IVE’s Jang Won-young

On May 24th, Criminal Division 1 of the Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office (Chief Prosecutor Lee Gon-ho) announced that the court had accepted their request to seize some of the assets of YouTuber A (female, 35 years old), who has been indicted on charges of defamation and insult under The Act of Promotion of Information and Communication Network Utilization and Information Protection.

A’s assets, which have been seized this time, include real estate and deposit bonds totaling around 200 million won. Asset seizure is a measure to prevent the suspect from transferring or selling specific assets before the sentence is finalized. Based on the court’s decision, the prosecution plans to redeem over 200 million won of A’s criminal proceeds.

A was indicted on charges of defaming 7 famous figures, including celebrities and influencers, by making videos slandering them 23 times on “Sojang”, the YouTube channel A ran from October 2021 to June last year. A reportedly produced and distributed a lot of false information about celebrities, especially IVE’s Jang Won-young, in the videos.

As a result of the prosecution’s analysis of the YouTube account “Sojang”, A was found to have earned 250 million won in two years. A prosecutor said, “We filed an application to request a pre-indictment asset seizure on the 9th and the court recently accepted it”, adding “We will thoroughly recover the proceeds of the fake news distributor who made money from slandering the victims in order to prevent similar crimes from happenting”.