Supreme Court Confirms Suspended Sentence for Lawyer Who Assaulted Lamborghini Driver, Passenger, and Police Officer

A suspended sentence was confirmed for a lawyer in his 30s who, intoxicated near midnight, stood in the middle of the road, assaulted the driver and passenger of an approaching Lamborghini vehicle, and even used violence against the police officers who arrived after receiving a report.

According to the legal community on the 20th, the Supreme Court's 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Shin Sook-hee) dismissed the appeal of lawyer Park Mo (39), who was indicted on charges of assaulting a driver under the Act on Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes, obstruction of official duties, property damage, and assault, and upheld the original court ruling sentencing Park to six months in prison with a one-year probation.

Supreme Court, Seocho-dong, Seoul.

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The court stated the reason for dismissing the appeal was that "there was no error in the original judgment such as failing to conduct necessary hearings, violating the rules of logic and experience beyond the limits of free evaluation of evidence, or misunderstanding the legal principles regarding the establishment of property damage."

On August 26, 2022, around 11:25 p.m., while intoxicated, Park was standing in the middle of the third lane of a four-lane road in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, when a Lamborghini Aventador passenger car driven by A (29, male) turned right and proceeded toward him. Park approached the passenger side and verbally abused B (22, female), who was sitting in the passenger seat, repeatedly hitting B's face through the open window. A passerby tried to stop Park, but Park continued to attack B, grabbing and shaking B's hair and hitting her ears, refusing to stop the assault.

When A tried to protect B by embracing her, Park assaulted A by hitting his arms multiple times. During this, Park also struck the passenger door, side mirror, right wheel, and engine compartment of the vehicle with his hands and kicked it, causing paint to peel off and scratches. The repair cost for the vehicle exceeded 40 million won after the incident.

Shortly after, two police officers who arrived in response to the report tried to stop Park, who was punching B and kicking the vehicle, but Park resisted and continued to try to hit B. When the officers arrested Park on the spot, he resisted and assaulted the two officers by kicking their heads multiple times.

The first trial court sentenced Park to eight months in prison with a two-year probation.

The court stated, "This case involves the defendant, intoxicated, provoking and assaulting the driver of a passing passenger car, kicking the vehicle, and assaulting the police officers who arrived, which is a very serious offense. Especially, obstruction of official duties by interfering with legitimate public officials' duties must be strictly punished."

The court also pointed out that Park had a prior record of committing similar crimes while intoxicated and took this into account in sentencing.

The court criticized, "The degree of assault on the victims and police officers is not minor, and despite receiving leniency with a fine in November 2021 for assaulting police officers who responded to a report of him blocking the road while intoxicated and repeatedly kicking the safety partition of a patrol car, the defendant repeated similar offenses within nine months."

The court considered as favorable factors that Park admitted to all charges and that the victims, including the police officers, expressed that they did not wish for punishment.

Regarding the assault charge against B, which is a crime requiring the victim's complaint to proceed, the court dismissed the prosecution as B submitted a letter of no prosecution on July 26 of last year.

The appellate court reduced Park's sentence to six months in prison with a one-year probation.

Park appealed the first trial verdict, claiming factual errors and excessive sentencing.

First, the court accepted Park's claim of factual error that, considering the acquisition cost of A's vehicle, the damage from property destruction could not exceed 30 million won, and thus the first trial's recognition of 40.37 million won in property damage was incorrect.

The court pointed out, "It is acknowledged that the defendant struck and kicked the vehicle driven by A, causing paint to peel and scratches, but based solely on the evidence submitted by the prosecution, it is difficult to conclude that the repair cost estimated at 40.37 million won was entirely caused by the defendant's actions."

However, the court noted that this factual error concerns the calculation of property damage and does not affect the establishment of the crime of property damage, thus it did not accept the factual error claim as grounds to overturn the first trial ruling.

On the other hand, the appellate court accepted Park's claim of excessive sentencing and overturned the first trial ruling.

The court stated, "Considering that the defendant admitted all charges and showed remorse, made efforts to compensate for property damage by paying a total of 60 million won to the victims, apologized several times to the police officers, and that the victims and police officers expressed that they did not wish for punishment, and after considering all sentencing factors, the original sentence was somewhat heavy and deemed inappropriate."

The Supreme Court also found no problem with the appellate court's judgment.

Although Park avoided imprisonment, his lawyer registration was canceled under the Attorney-at-Law Act following this confirmed ruling, and even after the one-year probation period, he will be unable to practice law for an additional two years.

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