KAKAOTALK ARCHIVE
THE JUNG JOON-YOUNG
MOLKA CASE
Three years before Jung Joon-young’s illegal-filming scandal became public in 2019,
police had already investigated him for secretly recording a sexual encounter.
What followed was not one investigation, one chatroom, or one criminal case.
PART ONE
THE INVESTIGATION BEFORE THE SCANDAL
Three years before Jung Joon-young’s illegal-filming scandal erupted in 2019,
police had already investigated him for secretly recording a sexual encounter.
The case ended without charges. When authorities revisited the investigation in
2019, however, they concluded that the police officer handling the case and Jung’s
attorney had improperly interfered with efforts to secure and examine crucial evidence.
The 2016 Investigation
In August 2016, Jung’s then-girlfriend reported him to police, alleging that he had
filmed her body without her consent during a sexual encounter.
Jung acknowledged that the video had existed but maintained that he believed the recording
was consensual and had since deleted it. His former girlfriend later withdrew her complaint
and indicated that she did not want Jung punished.
Police nevertheless considered Jung’s conduct potentially illegal and forwarded the case
to prosecutors with a recommendation for indictment.
A major problem had already occurred during the police investigation, however.
Police had requested the phone believed to contain the disputed recording. Jung’s side said
the device had been sent to a private digital-forensics company and did not provide it to police.
According to recordings and evidence that surfaced in 2019, the officer handling Jung’s case
contacted the forensic company while its examination was still incomplete and asked whether
the company could provide written confirmation stating that the phone’s data could not be recovered.
The forensic company refused.
Jung’s attorney subsequently submitted information to investigators stating that the phone
had been lost and its data could not be restored.
Police forwarded the case to prosecutors only 17 days after the complaint was filed,
without securing the disputed phone or properly investigating whether Jung had distributed
illegally filmed material.
Prosecutors ultimately declined to indict Jung in October 2016, concluding that the available
evidence did not establish that he had filmed the woman clearly against her wishes.
WHAT POLICE FOUND IN 2019
After Jung’s KakaoTalk conversations and illegal recordings surfaced in 2019,
authorities took another look at how the earlier case had been handled.
The results were significantly worse than simply finding that investigators had made mistakes.
Police concluded that the officer responsible for the 2016 investigation had suggested to
Jung’s attorney that they handle the phone as though Jung had lost it rather than saying it
had been submitted for private forensic analysis.
The attorney was accused of submitting false information stating that the phone was lost
and its data could not be restored.
THE PHONE HAD NOT DISAPPEARED
According to the 2019 police investigation, Jung’s attorney had kept the device at his office.
The officer was referred to prosecutors on suspicion of dereliction of duty and creating
and using false official documents. Jung’s attorney was also referred on allegations
including complicity in dereliction of duty and concealment of evidence.
Investigators said an ordinary sexual-violence investigation typically took approximately
three to four months. Jung’s had been sent to prosecutors after only 17 days.
Police also acknowledged that investigators had failed to properly investigate the possibility
that Jung had distributed illegally recorded videos.
Notably, investigators did not establish that the officer had received money or uncover another
corrupt relationship explaining his conduct. According to police, the officer said that he had
simply wanted to finish the investigation quickly.
WHY THE 2016 CASE MATTERS
A DOCUMENTED FAILURE
It is tempting to say that police could have uncovered the entire illegal-filming scandal
three years earlier if they had properly examined Jung’s phone.
The surviving evidence does not establish that.
Jung possessed multiple devices, and it cannot simply be assumed that the particular phone
at issue in the 2016 investigation contained all — or even the same collection — of material
that eventually exposed his crimes.
What can be established is considerably simpler.
Police were investigating an allegation of illegal filming. Jung acknowledged that the disputed
recording had existed. A potentially crucial device was not secured, the officer handling the
case attempted to obtain documentation saying its data could not be recovered, and Jung’s
attorney submitted information about the device that authorities later determined was false.
In the enormous collection of rumors, allegations, and genuine instances of corruption that
became attached to the “Burning Sun scandal,” Jung Joon-young’s failed 2016 investigation
stands out for an important reason: this particular failure was documented.
PART TWO
A SECOND INVESTIGATION
The 2016 case was not the last opportunity authorities had to investigate Jung
before the scandal became public.
In November 2018, Seoul police received another tip alleging that Jung had secretly
filmed a sexual encounter and that evidence could be found at the same private
digital-forensics company connected to the 2016 investigation.
Police opened an investigation and attempted to obtain a search-and-seizure warrant
for the forensic company.
Prosecutors rejected the first request because the alleged victim had not been identified.
Police then questioned a representative of the company and obtained confirmation that
Jung-related videos were being stored on a USB device.
The company declined to voluntarily provide the USB. Police applied for another warrant.
That request was also rejected, in part because prosecutors said they could not rule out
that the material concerned the same case that had already ended without indictment in 2016.
Without the suspected video, police sent the case to prosecutors in February 2019
with a recommendation not to indict.
Within weeks, Jung would be investigated for illegal filming for a third time.
PART THREE
THE CHATS BECOME PUBLIC
In March 2019, Korean media reported that Jung had secretly filmed sexual encounters
with women and distributed the recordings through private KakaoTalk conversations.
Jung was overseas filming a television program when the allegations became public.
He returned to South Korea on March 12.
On March 13, Jung issued a statement acknowledging that he had filmed women without
their consent and distributed the material through online conversations. He announced
that he would stop his entertainment activities and cooperate with investigators.
A DIFFERENT POSITION FROM 2016
In 2016, Jung had argued that the disputed recording was consensual or that he believed
he had consent. In 2019, he publicly admitted filming women without consent and sharing
the recordings with others.
Jung was arrested on March 21 on suspicion of illegally filming and distributing
sexual material.
On April 16, prosecutors indicted him while he remained in detention. Police had
identified 11 instances in which Jung distributed
illegally recorded sexual material between 2015 and 2016.
THERE WAS NOT ONE “JUNG JOON-YOUNG GROUP CHAT”
One of the most persistent simplifications of the scandal is the idea that
Jung Joon-young distributed illegal recordings through one single KakaoTalk
group containing everyone later associated with the case.
The court record shows something considerably more complicated.
According to KBS’s reporting on the first-instance judgment, Jung distributed
photos or videos he had recorded through five
separate group chats and three one-to-one conversations, reaching
14 people in total.
The membership changed from conversation to conversation. Some people received
material privately, while others appeared in different combinations of group chats.
No single fixed group received every recording.
Referring to “the Jung Joon-young group chat” can therefore create the false
impression that one permanent group of people witnessed every message, video,
or crime documented in the case.
The judgment-based figures are also narrower than some numbers reported during
the early police investigation. They describe Jung’s charged and proven acts of
distributing illegally recorded material rather than every conversation examined
by investigators during the broader 2019 inquiry.
The recovered conversations and recordings also largely concerned conduct from
2015 and 2016, before Burning Sun opened in 2018. The KakaoTalk scandal and the
Burning Sun investigation became publicly intertwined in 2019, but they were not
one single criminal case.
“Jung Joon-young’s group chat” is useful shorthand for a network of overlapping
conversations. It should not be interpreted as one permanent room every message or recording was sent.
The recovered recordings and conversations also largely concerned events from
2015 and 2016 — years before Burning Sun opened in 2018. The cases became publicly
intertwined in 2019 because of overlapping individuals and the broader Burning Sun
investigation, but they were not one single criminal case.
A SEPARATE CRIMINAL CASE
THE GANG-RAPE CASE
The gang-rape prosecution was related to the KakaoTalk evidence, but it was
not the same criminal case as Jung’s illegal-filming charges.
As investigators examined the recovered conversations and related evidence,
separate allegations of sexual assault emerged.
The resulting prosecution included incidents in Hongcheon
in January 2016 and Daegu in March 2016,
involving women prosecutors alleged were too intoxicated to resist.
Five men were ultimately tried together: Jung Joon-young, Choi Jong-hoon,
Kim, Kwon, and former entertainment-company employee Heo. The specific
charges and alleged degree of participation differed between the defendants
and between incidents.
Jung acknowledged during trial that sexual activity had occurred but denied
that he and the other defendants had planned or committed rape. His defense
argued that the encounter had been consensual and that the woman had not been
incapable of resistance.
Choi also denied the prosecution’s account. The other defendants raised
separate defenses concerning their individual conduct.
The court ultimately found the victims’ testimony credible and convicted
Jung and Choi of participating in sexual assaults against intoxicated women.
MOLKA CASE
Secret filming and distribution of sexual photographs and videos through
KakaoTalk and other private conversations.
SEXUAL-ASSAULT CASE
Separate allegations concerning sexual assaults against intoxicated women
during incidents in Hongcheon and Daegu in 2016.
In June 2019, the court combined Jung’s illegal-filming proceeding with the
sexual-assault case, allowing the allegations to be tried together.
NOVEMBER 29, 2019
CONVICTION
On November 29, 2019, the Seoul Central District Court convicted the defendants.
Kim was also sentenced to five years. Heo received an eight-month sentence
suspended for two years.
The court found Jung and Choi guilty in connection with sexual assaults against
intoxicated women. Jung was also convicted in connection with the illegal sexual
recordings he had distributed.
IMPORTANT
Jung’s six-year sentence was not a sentence for the molka chatroom alone.
His illegal-filming case and the separate sexual-assault case had been combined
into one proceeding. The sentence reflected both categories of offenses.
The KakaoTalk evidence therefore exposed two related but distinct sets of crimes:
the secret filming and distribution of women’s sexual images, and sexual assaults
involving members of the same social group.
THE 2016 VICTIM SPEAKS AGAIN
In May 2021, five years after she first reported Jung Joon-young for illegal filming, his former girlfriend publicly spoke about why she had withdrawn her complaint and later cooperated with Jung’s defense. She said that she had been overwhelmed by becoming the focus of a celebrity sex-crime case, feared a countersuit and a prolonged legal fight, and suffered severe harassment after details of the case became public. She filed a Blue House National Petition calling for stronger protections for sexual-crime victims, including restrictions on secondary victimization, protection of victims’ personal information during civil lawsuits, and the disabling of comment sections on news reports about sexual crimes.
Under the Blue House petition system then in use, 200,000 signatures within 30 days were required to trigger an official government response. Despite significant press coverage and public support from lawmaker Ryu Ho-jeong, the petition had received only 17,969 signatures by May 12 and 30,168 by May 28—far short of the required threshold. The petition did, however, produce one immediate result: SBS publicly apologized for inaccurate and unnecessary statements its reporters had made about the victim, acknowledged that its coverage had caused her further harm, and removed the offending video.
THE RECORD
TWO FAILED INVESTIGATIONS BEFORE 2019
Jung Joon-young had been investigated for illegal filming in 2016 and again
in 2018. Both investigations ended without charges.
In the first case, police failed to secure a potentially crucial device and
authorities later documented misconduct in the handling of the investigation.
In the second, police received another tip, confirmed that Jung-related videos
were stored by the forensic company, but failed to obtain the evidence after
search warrants were rejected.
Only when the broader KakaoTalk material surfaced in 2019 did the scale of
Jung’s illegal filming — and the separate sexual assaults connected to members
of the same social circle — become publicly established.
EVIDENCE ARCHIVE
READ THE KAKAOTALK CHATS
View translated chat excerpts and source material from the investigation.
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Page Last Updated:
SEP 13, 2026 12:24pm