Fiancée Suspected For Unprovoked, Unprovoked Returning, Prospective Husband Property of Pre-Married Lawyer

■ Broadcasting: FM 94.5 (06:40~06:55, 12:40~12:55, 19:40~19:55)
■ Broadcast Date: November 29, 2024 (Fri)
■ Host: Attorney Lee Won-hwa
■ Dialogue: Lawyer Lee Jung-min

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information.
◆ Lawyer Lee Won-hwa (hereinafter referred to as Lee Won-hwa): Mr. A, a 33-year-old man who worked as a lawyer, and Mr. B, a 30-year-old woman who worked as a web designer, were a couple who were only two months away from marriage. Like most, there were minor quarrels in the preparation of the wedding, but the stability of meeting a lifelong partner was incomparable to anything else. Fiancée B claimed that lawyer A, who was a prospective bride, suddenly demanded money and a car ahead of her marriage and fell out. The reason why this story came out was because the police received a report that a man A was missing. Fiancée B got 50 million won and delivered it to A, and it seems that A is going into hiding using this money. I also argued for it. That's how the case ended with the simple runaway of an adult man. But it turned out that lawyer A gave his fiancée B an officetel and was reported to be married. Even before lawyer A disappeared. When the incident became known, the police launched an investigation again. And the more they dug up, the more absurd evidence came out one after another. Then, B, a woman, submitted a handwritten fax note that her engaged lawyer had sent her. The note said, "Let's break up and meet another man." What on earth was the truth of this case? Did men really disappear before they got married? Or is this woman lying in the red? Let's take a closer look at this case in today's case X file. Hello, I'm Lee Won-hwa, the case X file of lawyer Lee Won-hwa. Today, we are also with lawyer Lee Jung-min of Law Firm Roel. Welcome, lawyer.

◇ Lawyer Lee Jung-min (hereinafter referred to as Lee Jung-min): Yes, hello. I'm lawyer Lee Jung-min of LOEL Law Firm.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: It was a very famous case in the legal profession. It was a case in which a lawyer who worked steadily disappeared without a trace one day without going to work or contacting him.

◇Lee Jung-min: Personally, this person is actually a senior at our school. It was around my age that the incident occurred. So, if I think about it a little bit, it was a time when there was no reason to give up on my daily life. And yet it literally disappeared.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: I had a vacation scheduled soon. I think he also told the employees when he left work, "See you tomorrow."

◇ Lee Jung-min: This incident happened on July 29, 2004. Mr. A was planning to go on a summer vacation for a week from July 31st, two days later. On that day, the employees were told that they would see B tomorrow and were sure that they would go to work on July 30th, the day before the vacation. And two months later, A was also a prospective bride-to-be who was planning to get married.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: There is no reason for the lawyer to disappear from the family's point of view because it was not like he had a bad relationship with anyone or he had a financial problem. He didn't go into hiding because he wanted to, but something must have happened. I asked the police to investigate.

◇Lee Jung-min: A week later, A's family members report A's disappearance to the police because A didn't return home. Fiancée B, who was scheduled to get married at the time, said A had been asking for 300 million won and a luxury car office and that it was difficult for me, so she left, saying she would think about getting married again. After receiving the 50 million won in cash he saved, he tells the police that he seems to be going into hiding while spending the money.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: So your fiancee's position is that she suddenly asked for money ahead of the marriage and saved about 50 million won for now, and she probably went into hiding with it, right?

◇ Lee Jung-min: That's right. The fiancee also stated that A said that everyone does that to marry a lawyer. It's not a story that's not going to be at all, but there were no signs of crime around A, A and B had been dating for two years and were planning to get married in two months, so B's statement seems reliable as the closest person. And since it is also the disappearance of an adult man capable of self-protection, the police close the internal investigation, thinking that he must be running away voluntarily without any special problems.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: If I were the family of this disappeared lawyer, I think it would have been difficult to understand this part, which ended as simply running away from home.

◇ Lee Jung-min: That's right. In fact, Mr. A's family couldn't be convinced. Mr. A's family continued to request the resumption of the investigation. However, in the meantime, I continued to discover B's suspicious behavior and surrounding circumstances and submitted them to the investigative agency.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: What were the suspicious points?

◇Lee Jung-min: I think we need to reflect on what Mr. B said earlier. You said that A asked for money or insisted that we think about getting married again. However, in the relationship between A and B, the circumstances in which A gave money to B are confirmed.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: The lawyer was rather paying his fiancee. It's really a bit fishy.

◇ Lee Jung-min: Not only that, but as I said earlier, he insisted on rethinking marriage. Mr. A and Mr. B had already been registered for marriage. In other words, as Mr. B said, I couldn't tell Mr. A to reconsider marriage. I would have asked you to divorce me. In this situation, the circumstances that the police may suspect unfold once more.

◆ Lee Won-hwa: What was it?

◇Lee Jung-min: About a month after the missing report, Mr. B suddenly submits a handwritten fax to the police that I received from Mr. A. Let's break up. Let's get divorced without saying anything. It said, 'Meet another man, too.' Mr. A's handwriting was also correct. So, it was not about rethinking marriage, but about divorce.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: But why is this rather suspicious?

◇Lee Jung-min: It wasn't a matter of content. As I said earlier, the problem was the format, but the size of the letters was slightly different for each letter on the memo, and the letters were written on a clean fax paper, but I could see a small number of vertical lines between the words. As if there were outlines of words, and at that time, it was A with a very small and distant voice that was difficult for A's family to identify. Don't worry about it. Take care. I have another girl. I just got a call saying, "I'll be right in." Of course, the family said that the voice was not A's voice.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: So what happened?

◇ Lee Jung-min: The police obtain a search warrant to investigate all data related to A and B. And we started a search related to Mr. B. I find A's resident registration card and A's diary that are torn everywhere in B's house. In fact, the letter was made by tearing A's diary and combining letters.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: It's really creepy. Then the voice message that the lawyer sent to his family, this was also made up by this woman.

◇Lee Jung-min: The police confirm that the call came from a public phone in Jamsil, Seoul, and also find the man who B paid to imitate A and secure his identity. In addition, A's asset details confirmed by the search warrant were more shocking. Two days after A's disappearance, B buys 8 million won worth of luxury bags with A's credit card and gets A's seal certificate and sells A's car for 10 million won. Also, I chartered a room at an officetel under Mr. A's name and took the deposit of 60 million won as it was, and withdrew 2 million won in cash from Mr. A's bank account as it was. What Mr. B claimed now is that he voluntarily disappeared, is a legal husband who is still alive and can come back at any time, and he is a person who needs to be married in the future, but he disposed of all his property and residence at once. And in fact, the marriage registration I said earlier was a little embarrassing because the personal information registered here was not A's mobile number. It's not just a typo, but it was actually the real contact information of another man B lived with at the time, that is, Dong-Gam C.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: The man who was about to get married was living with a man?

◇ Lee Jung-min: In fact, the people who went to register their marriage were two children, Dong-Gam C and Fiancée B. Also, on the day of the incident on July 29, Dongnam C's vehicle was filmed on CCTV at Namsan Tunnel 1 toll booth at 6:15 p.m. However, the driver's seat of the vehicle was identified by his fiancée B, and the passenger seat was identified by people believed to be lawyer A. The fiancee of course denies that she was only in Bundang at the time and that she did not drive the vehicle. The saddest fact is that lawyer A told you that he gave money to his fiancee, let alone asked B for 300 million won. In fact, Mr. A purchased an officetel from Mr. B and registered it in his name, but Mr. B and Mr. C lived together in the officetel.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: No, it became difficult to get married because he asked for money from him. Didn't we talk about this? But the lawyer even gave this woman an officetel in her name. This is it.

◇ Lee Jung-min: That's right. When Mr. A disappeared, he used his credit card, sold his car, sold all his assets, and got a part-time job as an acting figure on a job search site, maybe it wasn't enough. I issued documents under Mr. A's name, opened additional phones, and tried to borrow them again. The recipient of insurance money for Mr. A's insurance was changed to himself, his fiancee B.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: But this is Mr. B's fiancee. I couldn't bring this man to court. There's a story like this. How is it?

◇Lee Jung-min: Actually, that was not the case. Of course, Mr. B is involved in Mr. A's disappearance. It's because you can judge the degree. However, the problem was whether B actually killed A or whether he could be charged with murder, and the murder charge was not applied. The legal provisions that were actually applied were also minor crimes such as forgery of private documents and fraudulent use of resident registration cards because they fabricated fraudulent letters and filled out loan applications that obtained money by illegally stealing A's name.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: What was the result of the trial?

◇Lee Jung-min: I think he was held responsible for A's disappearance in the first trial. It is not an official crime, but the first trial sentenced B to 10 years in prison. So it's actually a ridiculous sentence. Since the upper limit of the fraud court is 10 years, seeking a 10-year sentence for fraud is a declaration that could theoretically exist as the worst fraud in the world. So, in practice, you can't get a 10-year sentence for committing fraud. There are some other crimes mixed, but the same is true. In this situation, you usually have to come out well, but if you come out for about two years, you'll come out a lot. Rather than this fraudulent sentence, an accidental murder was generally sentenced at that time for about 12 years, but it was a sentence that was a little closer to murder. However, in the appeal trial, this result is actually completely reversed.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: How has it changed?

◇ Lee Jung-min: You will be sentenced to two years in prison. It came out as I said it would be 2 years at the most. So the appeals court judged that the fact that the fiancée B was involved in A's disappearance itself did not strictly prove that it really led to the disappearance or led to his death. Well, it's not wrong. In fact, I keep telling you that when in doubt, it is strictly in the interest of the defendant.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: But suddenly, I said that the insurance money was in my mind. Is it possible that this woman took this insurance payment?

◇ Lee Jung-min: Yes, as I said earlier, you said you've moved the recipient of the insurance money to your fiancée, Mr. B, by looking for a stand-in. Originally, if you kill to get insurance money, you will be excluded from receiving insurance money. But as I just told you, B is lacking evidence to believe that he was involved in A's disappearance or death. Then, this person is currently eligible to receive the full insurance money. So I think I probably received the full amount. The total amount of insurance calculated at that time is about 1.5 billion won.

◆ Lee Won-hwa: Case X-Files Today, we looked at the disappearance of a lawyer who was a prospective groom who was about to get married. For a simple disappearance, it was a case full of clear circumstantial evidence. That's all we've prepared for today. You all deserve to be defended. Incident X file, thank you everyone.