'Baksa Bang' Jo Joo-bin's First Trial Ends Early Due to Witness No-show

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Jo] The first trial of Jo Joo-bin (24), who was arrested and indicted on charges including sharing sexually exploitative materials in the Telegram chatroom 'Baksa Bang,' was abruptly ended after about 40 minutes due to the absence of a witness.

The Seoul Central District Court Criminal Division 30 (Presiding Judge Lee Hyun-woo) held the first hearing at 2 p.m. on the same day for Jo and his accomplices Kang Mo (24) and Lee Mo (16), planning to call the victim as a witness for a closed examination.

The witness examination was related to charges denied by Jo's side during the previous preparatory hearing. However, the witness did not appear that day. The reason for the absence was not disclosed. The prosecution stated, "We understand that the witness cannot attend."

The court asked Jo and the others again whether they wished for a jury trial. The defendants all answered, "We do not wish to."

The court also accepted the prosecution's request last month to amend the indictment. This did not change the facts of the crime but simply replaced the victims' pseudonyms in the original indictment with the term 'victim.'

This reflected a request from the victims' legal representatives during the previous preparatory hearing. At that time, the victims' lawyers stated, "Although the indictment is pseudonymous, the victims can be identified as it has already been leaked to the media," and requested, "Please refrain from mentioning even the pseudonyms as much as possible."

The court conducted the prosecution's reading of the indictment in a closed session. After confirming the admissibility of evidence, the hearing was concluded. The court decided to conduct the witness examination, which could not be held that day, on the 25th.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.