Ex-councilor accused of child sex prostitution taken into custody due to flight risk

Former Cheongju city councilor Choi Young-joong was detained on Thursday over child prostitution charges, and police plan to focus their investigation on whether additional victims exist.

The Cheongju District Court issued the arrest warrant for Choi on Thursday. It cited “concerns of destroying evidence and flight risk,” according to legal sources.

The court also issued a separate warrant Thursday authorizing access to a year's worth of Choi's communication records, covering July 2025 to July 2026.

Choi is accused of paying for sex with a middle school student on three separate occasions between October 2024 and October 2025, in locations including his car and motels, and of demanding she send him nude photos.

Choi has denied the charges throughout the investigation, telling police he “did not know the victim was a minor.” Police, however, have focused on evidence suggesting otherwise: Choi allegedly met the victim, a middle school student, while she was wearing her school uniform, and proposed sex in exchange for buying her cigarettes.

Police suspect there may be additional victims, based on evidence that Choi offered to pay the victim more if she brought a friend and her older sister, and sent messages that appeared to suggest a sexual encounter involving a foreign woman.

Investigators are also examining whether Choi possessed or produced sexually exploitative material. He had asked the victim to take and send him nude photos of herself and had shown her a video of himself having sex with another woman.

Choi won a council seat as a member of the People Power Party in the June 3 local elections but resigned on July 16, shortly after the allegations against him surfaced.

BY KIM JI-HYE [[email protected]]