Sexual abuse of staff when he held office comes back to bite former mayor in S. Korea, now sentenced to 3 years in prison

Oh Keo-don, the former Mayor of Busan, South Korea, has been sentenced to three years in prison for sexually abusing city staffers, following a lengthy #MeToo trial.

Oh was handed the sentence on Tuesday, just over a year after he stepped down as Mayor of Busan following multiple sexual-abuse allegations. On top of his sentence, Oh was also ordered to undergo counseling and has been banned for five years from working with vulnerable people, starting when he leaves prison.

The former mayor – who told reporters at the court that "all faults lie in me" – was accused last year of groping a city staffer in his office, which allegedly resulted in her suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Another woman who had worked with Oh also made similar allegations of sexual assault.

After resigning in April 2020, Oh – a member of South Korean President Moon Jae-in's Democratic Party – admitted that he had "made an unnecessary physical contact" with the woman who accused him of groping and that he has since "realized that this could amount to a sexual assault."

"Regardless of the severity of my act, I admit that it cannot be forgiven," he said.

Though Oh's defense team attempted to argue that the 72-year-old mayor's behavior was due to his declining cognitive state, the court ruled that "it's difficult to believe that the defendant has a degree of cognitive impairment that would have influenced his actions when he was committing the crimes."

Since Oh's resignation last year, Busan has had four mayors, three of whom served as acting-mayors for periods ranging from three days to over nine months. Park Heong-joon, a member of the conservative People Power Party, is the current Mayor of Busan since taking office in April.

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