Former K-pop idol Moon Tae-il, known mononymously as Taeil, has been sentenced to three years and six months in prison by a Seoul district court for his involvement in the gang rape of a Chinese tourist, reported The Korea Times.
The ruling, handed down on Thursday, marks a dramatic fall from grace for the former member of SM Entertainment’s globally popular boy band NCT.
Taeil, 31, was convicted alongside two co-defendants, identified in court only by their surnames, Lee and Hong. All three men received identical sentences and were immediately taken into custody following the verdict. In addition to prison time, each has been ordered to complete 40 hours of sexual violence treatment programming.
According to details revealed during the trial, the assault took place in June 2024. The three men encountered the victim at a bar in Seoul’s Itaewon district, where she consumed alcohol with them and became heavily intoxicated. They then transported her by taxi to Lee’s residence, where they raped her while she was unconscious and unable to resist.
South Korean law classifies the crime as “aggravated rape” due to the involvement of multiple perpetrators, and “quasi-rape” because the victim was rendered incapable of giving consent.
All three defendants pleaded guilty to the charges last month.
The presiding judge described the crime as “extremely grave,” yet handed down a sentence half the length of the seven years sought by prosecutors, citing the fact that the offenders were first-time violators, according to the BBC.
Taeil debuted with NCT U in 2016 and later joined NCT 127, a subunit of the experimental and genre-blending act NCT, which gained global acclaim and charted on Billboard multiple times.
His removal from the group in August last year raised eyebrows, and details of the allegations were not made public at the time. Later that month, it was discovered that SM Entertainment terminated his contract over sex crime allegations.
The agency, home to groups such as Aespa, Riize, and Super Junior, released an official statement on X (formerly known as Twitter) confirming that the 30-year-old singer has been implicated in a criminal investigation related to an unspecified sexual crime, reported Variety.