Following DSP Media’s lawsuit loss over Hyunjoo‘s acquaintance and brother alleging that she was bullied in APRIL, they appealed the decision, and today the police also dismissed that lawsuit.
On June 23, law firm Lee & Kim announced that the police had cleared former APRIL member Hyunjoo’s younger brother of his defamation charges.
After an investigation, the police concluded that Hyunjoo’s brother had no intention to slander APRIL. They judged that he had written the post out of frustration about his sister’s situation and because he wanted to bring out the truth after seeing Hyunjoo say that she had left the team of her own accord. The police also decided it was true that Hyunjoo had been bullied by the group, that the “tumbler incident” and “shoes incident” had really taken place, and that the contents of the post cannot be considered false as they are close enough to the truth of the events that took place while Hyunjoo and the members promoted together. Law firm Lee & Kim shared, “Lee Hyunjoo’s brother was informed on June 20 that he was cleared of charges, and through a request to view and copy the documents, he was able to confirm the specific reasoning behind the police dropping the case. The accuser (DSP Media) will most likely have received a notice regarding the charges being cleared around June 20 as Lee Hyunjoo’s brother did.” The law firm further stated, “There were a total of six accusers who sued Lee Hyunjoo’s brother, but because the information about the accusers is not part of the information that is available for viewing and copying, Lee Hyunjoo’s side was not able to confirm who the specific accusers are. We will be submitting additional requests to verify who the six accusers are. Since the accusers have asked for a legal judgement from the beginning and filed lawsuits against Hyunjoo’s brother, a minor, as well as others, we would like them to make the necessary claims within the boundaries of the procedures set by the law.”
Well, guess that explains the media blitz from DSP’s side of late. Hard to see it as coincidental that they were informed this was coming sometime around or before June 20 and the media blitz started the day before. I mean, they gotta do something. Not sure what they mean by finding who filed the lawsuit, but surely it’s related to APRIL and perhaps DSP execs.
Personally, I agree with the legal rulings so far in the Hyunjoo case, but in themselves they don’t mean much, if that makes sense. Unless the rulings are based on stuff we didn’t know prior, then a court saying it doesn’t make it just in itself. For the most part, we honestly knew all this from reading the statements and, quite frankly, what DSP’s side has admitted in their defenses (which again, is why their strategy was nuts to me).
Notably though, the police reportedly felt that the bullying and specific incidents were true, and at least that it was basically impossible to call the brother’s testimony false, which probably bodes well for whatever lawsuits are coming at Hyunjoo directly going forward.