Reported to Police by an Ex-Partner on 11 Charges
Even with Key Evidence Lost, All Charges Dropped in 6 Weeks

Hello, this is Kwon & Partners Law Office. Many people feel lost when an ex-partner suddenly files a criminal complaint against them. Sexual crime complaints are especially hard to face alone, because the complainant's statement can become the main evidence. Today we share the case of a client whose ex-partner reported him or her on 11 charges, including sexual assault of an incapacitated person. Important evidence was gone. Still, the police closed the case on every charge with a decision of "insufficient evidence, no charges."

Client A met B at work in early 2024. They dated for a few months and broke up around April 2024. They stayed in touch now and then, but all contact stopped after January 2025. Then in May 2025, B filed a complaint against A on 11 charges: sexual assault of an incapacitated person, forced indecent act, trespassing, unlawful confinement, coercion, threats, injury, illegal filming, obscene messages, and violation of the Stalking Punishment Act. Events from more than a year earlier were written up like crimes. On top of that, A lost the phone holding call recordings and text messages in June 2025, so most of the helpful evidence was gone. In August 2025, before the police interview, A came to Kwon & Partners Law Office.

In sexual crime complaints, the complainant's statement easily becomes the key evidence. For sexual assault of an incapacitated person (Article 299 of the Criminal Act), what matters is whether the accused took advantage of a person who could not resist, for example because of heavy drinking. But between people who were dating, it is hard to tell whether the other person was really in that state, and whether the accused knew it and used it. So our side focused on finding and showing facts that did not match the complaint: looking at whether behavior after the events fit the story in the complaint.

First, we got the complaint before the interview. We requested the full complaint through a public information request and broke down the 11 charges and six different dates, one by one. Then we went through what really happened on each date with our client before the police interview. Because we understood the complaint in advance, our client could answer clearly and consistently.

We filled the gap left by the lost evidence with people near the events and with behavior after the events. On the day the complaint called "confinement," the two had ridden in the same car. We obtained a written statement from the driver: they talked together during the ride and got out with no problem. We also put in time order that B stayed at A's home for several days after the alleged harm, going on walks and outings together, and that in January 2025, after the breakup, B contacted A first to ask for a job introduction and then actually started working there. We checked whether the phone and messenger records could be recovered, and stated in our written opinion that our client would cooperate if the police requested them officially. This showed clearly that our client was not hiding evidence.