Child rapist’s damaged home monitor antenna went unnoticed for six days by officials: Report
Court records show that Cho Doo-soon damaged monitoring equipment several times before receiving an eight-month prison sentence.
Cho Doo-soon, a convicted child sex offender, answers reporters’ questions after a trial at the Ansan branch of the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office in Danwon District, Ansan, Gyeonggi, on March 11, 2024.
NEWS1
Convicted child rapist Cho Doo-soon broke the antenna on the electronic monitoring unit in his home last year, but probation officers did not discover the damage for six days.
Cho broke the external antenna of the unit, installed in the bedroom of his home in Ansan, Gyeonggi, at around 11:28 a.m. on June 3 last year, the newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported Wednesday, citing court rulings and an indictment that Rep. Kim Dong-ah of the Democratic Party obtained from the Supreme Court and the Justice Ministry.
Cho served 12 years in prison for raping an 8-year-old girl in Ansan in 2008, leaving the victim with life-altering injuries. Since his release in December 2020, he has lived under electronic monitoring, with limits on when he may leave home.
The unit's LTE signal dropped sharply after the antenna was broken, but the probation office did not confirm the damage until June 9. A police post stands in front of Cho's house and probation officers visited regularly, but none of them noticed the damage, according to the report.
The home unit tracks the location of the person being monitored and is used to check whether that person is complying with the conditions imposed by the court.
Cho committed eight violations involving his monitoring equipment between March and October last year: five curfew breaches and three instances of device damage. In May last year, he damaged the unit's cover, though the device kept working. He broke the antenna the following month. The violations continued after prosecutors indicted him. On Oct. 6 last year, he unplugged the unit's power adapter and switched off the circuit breaker, cutting power to it for about 21 minutes. The unit's internal battery reportedly kept its location tracking running.
Four days later, he left home during restricted hours. Cho is barred from going out from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., when children travel to and from school, and from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.
On Jan. 28, the Ansan branch of the Suwon District Court sentenced Cho to eight months in prison for violating the law on electronic monitoring and other offenses. The court also ordered him into medical treatment in custody, saying he risked reoffending if left untreated. An appeals court upheld the ruling in June.
Cho entered the National Forensic Hospital, the Justice Ministry's psychiatric facility for offenders, in early July.
BY SHIN HYE-YEON [[email protected]]
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
