On June 23, law firm Lee & Kim announced that the police had cleared former APRIL member Hyunjoo’s younger brother of his defamation charges.
In February and March, Hyunjoo’s brother uploaded posts stating that Hyunjoo had been bullied by her bandmates when she was part of APRIL.
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.”
Back in March, DSP Media denied the bullying allegations and took legal action against Hyunjoo and her family and friends. In April, Hyunjoo released a personal statement about the allegations, which DSP Media again denied. Chaewon and Yena were the first APRIL members to personally respond to the allegations, followed by Naeun and Jinsol. Hyunjoo took legal action against a former DSP Media employee, while DSP Media’s defamation case against Hyunjoo’s acquaintance was recently dismissed by the police. Chaewon once again denied that she had bullied Hyunjoo, and Hyunjoo shared a new post on her Instagram account, which Chaewon responded to. Chaewon, Naeun, Yena, and Jinsol took part in an interview where they revealed the details of what had happened with Hyunjoo in the past.
Well yikes, hopefully they can resolve this soon -_-
