A general military court sentenced on Aug. 12 former K-pop boy band Big Bang member Seungri to three years in prison on various charges such as prostitution mediation.
Seungri, 31, was ordered by the military court to be immediately detained, Yonhap News reported. His prison sentence is less than the five years sought by military prosecutors.
Seungri, who enlisted in the military in March last year, faced nine charges before the military court: prostitution mediation in violation of Act on the Punishment of Arrangement of Commercial Sex Acts Etc., embezzlement, overseas gambling, procuring prostitution service, violation of Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, violation of Food Sanitation Act, violation of the Act on Special Cases Concerning The Punishment, Etc. of Sexual Crimes, violation of an Act on the Aggravated Punishment Etc. of Specific Economic Crimes and mobilizing gang to threaten people. He denied the charges.
He is at the center of the Burning Sun club scandal, which started in early 2019. Seungri was charged with misappropriating 528 million ($454,000) in club funds, overseas gambling in Las Vegas and violating Korea’s foreign exchange transaction law.
Due to the Burning Sun scandal, Seungri announced his retirement from the entertainment industry on March 11, 2019.
“I have decided to retire from the entertainment industry as the issues that caused social controversy are so great,” he said then.