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| Actor Kang Sung-wook is in jail for sexually assaulting a woman in 2017. Courtesy of Channel A |
By Lee Gyu-lee
Actor Kang Sung-wook, from hit TV reality show "Heart Signal," has had a 30-month jail sentence for sexually assaulting a woman confirmed.
Several news outlets reported Thursday that the Supreme Court confirmed the lower court's sentence on June 25.
Kang was convicted of raping a bar waitress while drinking with her at his friend's house in Busan in 2017. The victim claimed he also verbally abused her, inflicting emotional distress, when she reported the rape.
Kang was sentenced to five years in jail and ordered to undertake 40 hours of an anti-sexual crime program by the Seoul Central District Court in July last year.
But the sentence was reduced after an appeal in March. The appellate court concluded the evidence of abuse was insufficient.
"There is not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the 'acute stress disorder' can be said as the injury from the sexual assault," the court ruled. It cut Kang's sentence to 30 months.
The actor debuted in the musical "Phantom" in 2015 and has appeared in several other musicals, including "Werther" and "Newsies." He garnered fame as a cast member in the first season of the romance reality show "Heart Signal" in 2017.
After the show became a hit, he landed a role in KBS drama "Marry Me Now" in 2018. But fame soon turned to notoriety when his conviction was revealed last year.
