What Was the Verdict in Jungkook's Stalking Case?
A Brazilian woman who spent three weeks repeatedly appearing at BTS member Jung Kook's Seoul residence will not serve prison time. The court that convicted her cited her expected deportation as a reason to suspend the sentence.
The Seoul Western District Court's Criminal Division 1, presided over by Judge Park Ji-won, sentenced a Brazilian woman in her 30s — identified in Korean reporting only as "A" — to one year in prison, suspended for two years, on May 8, 2026. She was convicted of violating South Korea's Act on Punishment of Stalking Crimes and of residential trespass, under case number 2026고단100192.
Quick Answer: A Brazilian woman in her 30s received one year in prison, suspended for two years, for stalking BTS's Jung Kook at his Yongsan-gu home. The Seoul Western District Court found she visited 22 times between December 7 and 28, 2025, including 133 doorbell rings in one night, and is expected to be deported.
The ruling was handed down in May but only became publicly known when Korean legal-affairs outlets reported it on June 22–23, 2026, roughly six weeks later. Prosecutors had indicted her while she was in custody, with the indictment reported by Yonhap on March 3, 2026.
Because the term is suspended, she serves no further custodial time beyond the roughly three months of pretrial detention she had already completed. The one-year sentence activates only if she commits another qualifying offense during the two-year probation window, which would trigger revocation. In practice, the more consequential outcome may be immigration-related: the court noted she is expected to be forcibly deported once the judgment becomes final, as Sports Chosun reported.
Timeline: 22 Visits, 133 Doorbell Rings, and a Trespass Arrest
The court's finding covers a three-week span in December 2025, during which the defendant went to Jung Kook's Yongsan-gu residence and its immediate surroundings 22 times between December 7 and December 28, 2025 . The conduct recorded in the judgment includes ringing the doorbell, waiting nearby for him to appear, throwing objects over the perimeter wall, and pushing letters, photographs and printed materials through the gap in the door, as The Korea Times and Lawtalk News reported from legal sources.
Two doorbell figures anchor the case. On the first visit, December 7, 2025, she rang the bell 13 consecutive times over roughly 20 minutes. On December 12, 2025, she rang it 133 times, from evening into the night . That 133 figure is a single-day doorbell count — not a visit count. Several English-language aggregators compressed it into "133 visits" or "133 rings on her first visit"; the better-supported reading from Korean legal reporting is 22 visits total, with 133 rings concentrated on December 12 .
| Date | What happened | Official response |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 7, 2025 | First visit; doorbell rung 13 consecutive times over ~20 minutes | — |
| Dec 12, 2025 | Doorbell rung 133 times, evening into night | — |
| Dec 13, 2025 | Followed a food-delivery courier's side entrance into the compound's shared entrance area; never entered the living quarters | Arrested in flagrante by Yongsan Police; released after questioning with a formal warning not to approach |
| Dec 28, 2025 | End of the 22-visit period found by the court | Emergency protective measure (긴급응급조치): 100-meter approach ban |
| Jan 4, 2026 | Returned to leave photographs and printed materials near the home despite the order | Further police response |
| Feb 13, 2026 | — | Warrant arrest; held in pretrial detention |
| Mar 3, 2026 | — | Indicted in custody (reported by Yonhap) |
| May 8, 2026 | — | One year in prison, suspended for two years |
The December 13 trespass is the escalation the court treated as distinct from the doorbell conduct. She observed a courier use a side entrance to the residential compound, waited, and slipped in after he came back out, reaching the shared entrance area only . Police released her the same night with a warning. The 100-meter emergency measure imposed on December 28 carried its own limits under the stalking statute — police must seek court approval through prosecutors within 48 hours, and the measure cannot run longer than one month . Her January 4 return breached it, and the warrant arrest followed on February 13, 2026, with the indictment reported by Yonhap on March 3, 2026 .
Why the Court Suspended the Sentence Instead of Jail Time
The Seoul Western District Court suspended the one-year prison term because it judged the defendant's reoffense risk to be low once she is deported, not because it viewed the conduct as minor. Judge Park Ji-won weighed a set of aggravating findings against a longer list of mitigating ones and landed on one year in prison, suspended for two years . Under a suspended sentence, she serves no additional custodial time unless she commits another qualifying offense inside the two-year probation window.
On the aggravating side, the court noted that she kept committing stalking offenses after being caught in the act on December 13, 2025, questioned by Yongsan Police, warned not to approach Jung Kook, and released . Her failure to comply with the emergency protective measure and the trespass itself were counted against her, as was the fact that Jung Kook explicitly asked for severe punishment .
The mitigating findings were more numerous. The court concluded she appeared to be trying to convey her feelings rather than to physically harm him, that she never entered his actual living quarters, that the degree of non-compliance with the emergency order was comparatively limited, and that the victim did not perceive the doorbell-ringing in real time . She had also already spent roughly three months in pretrial detention after her February 13, 2026 warrant arrest . At the indictment stage, prosecutors reported that she said she had acted "out of love for Jungkook."
"She visited the residence roughly 20 times from December into January, pressed the doorbell and left letters, telling prosecutors she acted out of love for Jungkook," — indictment-stage account, Yonhap News Agency (source: Yonhap English, 2026-03)
The decisive factor was immigration status. The court expects her to be forcibly deported once the judgment becomes final, and treated that as sharply reducing the chance of repeat offending . Deportation, in other words, does part of the work incarceration would otherwise do. For foreign fans, that framing matters: the immigration consequence — removal and a likely re-entry bar — can be the heavier penalty in practice, even though the headline sentence carries no jail time.
Why It Matters: This Isn't the First Incident at Jungkook's Home
The suspended sentence lands on a residence that has already been targeted at least twice before, which is why Korean coverage has framed this case as a safety pattern rather than a one-off. Jung Kook's home in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, drew a trespass-related arrest on his military discharge day and another during an underground-garage intrusion later the same year . Each incident involved a different person, and only one has produced a conviction.
- June 11, 2025 — discharge day. A Chinese woman in her 30s was arrested at around 11:20 p.m. after repeatedly punching numbers into the keypad on his door. The Seoul Western District Prosecutors' Office later granted a suspension of indictment (기소유예) on attempted trespass, reasoning that she never got inside and had already left the country .
- August 30, 2025 — underground garage. A woman in her 40s was arrested after tailing a vehicle into the building's parking garage. Jung Kook described the episode on a birthday livestream, saying he watched it unfold from home and that the intruder tried to flee the basement when police arrived .
The statutory ceiling makes the gap visible. Ordinary stalking under the Act on Punishment of Stalking Crimes carries up to three years' imprisonment or a fine of up to 30 million won, rising to five years or 50 million won where a deadly weapon or dangerous object is involved . The one-year term suspended for two years sits well below that ceiling.
BIGHIT MUSIC and parent company HYBE have continued issuing periodic notices about legal action over rights violations targeting BTS members . In Korea the case is being read alongside a wider industry problem: publicly circulated home addresses, obsessive fan behavior, and enforcement that mostly arrives after someone is already at the door.
What's Still Unconfirmed: Appeal, Deportation, and the Fan Reaction
Three things about this case are not yet settled: whether the verdict is final, whether the deportation actually happens, and what the full judgment says. No official public judgment text has surfaced. The account of the May 8, 2026 ruling rests on legal-affairs reporting by Korean outlets in the days around June 22, 2026 , plus Yonhap's earlier indictment story of March 3, 2026 and the official English text of the stalking statute .
On the procedural side, it has not been publicly reported whether either the defense or the prosecution filed an appeal within the seven-day window that follows a Korean first-instance criminal verdict, nor whether the sentence has become final . That matters because the deportation the court leaned on is conditional: reporting describes the defendant as "expected" to be forcibly removed once the judgment is finalized, and no outlet has reported that removal being carried out . Her name and exact age remain withheld beyond "a Brazilian national in her 30s."
Part of the fan reaction has been critical, arguing the framework under-deters foreign-national offenders when the practical penalty is removal rather than custody. The counter-reading is that for a non-citizen, a deportation and the re-entry bar that follows can land harder than a one-year term suspended for two years — a Korean defendant would keep the right to stay.
The concrete takeaway for fans: the punishment recorded on paper here is one year suspended for two, and everything harsher than that — finality, removal, a re-entry ban — is still unverified. Treat the case as closed at the trial level only.
Frequently asked questions
What sentence did Jungkook's stalker receive?
The Seoul Western District Court sentenced the Brazilian woman to one year in prison, suspended for two years, on May 8, 2026 . She was convicted of violating South Korea's Act on Punishment of Stalking Crimes and of residential trespass. A suspended term means no further custodial time unless she commits another qualifying offense during the two-year probation period, which would revoke the suspension and activate the one-year sentence. Criminal Division 1, presided over by Judge Park Ji-won, handled the case under docket number 2026고단100192 . The ruling only became publicly known when Korean legal-affairs outlets reported it on June 22–23, 2026 .
How many times did she visit Jungkook's home?
The court found she went to Jung Kook's residence in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, and its immediate surroundings 22 times between December 7 and December 28, 2025 . The conduct included ringing the doorbell, waiting nearby for him to appear, throwing objects over the perimeter wall, and pushing letters, photographs and printed materials through the gap in the door . At the indictment stage, Yonhap reported a slightly different framing — roughly 20 visits from December into January — and quoted the defendant telling prosecutors she had acted "out of love for Jungkook" . The 22-visit figure is the one recorded in the trial court's finding.
Did she ring the doorbell 133 times on her first visit?
No. On her first visit, December 7, 2025, she rang the bell 13 consecutive times over roughly 20 minutes. The 133-ring figure comes from a separate visit on December 12, 2025, when the ringing ran from evening into the night . Several secondary and English-language headlines have compressed these two numbers into "133 rings on her first visit" or, in some versions, "133 visits" — neither matches the underlying Korean reporting . The supported reading is 22 visits in total, with 133 doorbell rings concentrated on a single day.
Will she be deported?
Deportation is expected but not publicly confirmed as executed. The court treated forced deportation once the judgment becomes final as a mitigating factor, reasoning that removal from the country sharply reduces the risk of repeat offending — which is part of why the sentence was suspended rather than served . As of this writing it has not been publicly confirmed whether either side appealed within the seven-day window, whether the sentence has become final, or whether removal has actually taken place. She had already spent roughly three months in pretrial custody following her February 13, 2026 arrest on a warrant .
Has Jungkook's home been targeted before?
Yes, at least twice in 2025 in incidents unrelated to this case. On June 11, 2025 — the day of his military discharge — a Chinese woman in her 30s was arrested around 11:20 p.m. after repeatedly punching numbers into his door keypad; prosecutors later granted her a suspension of indictment on attempted trespass, citing that she never got inside and had left the country . On August 30, 2025, a woman in her 40s was arrested after tailing a vehicle into the underground parking garage; Jung Kook described watching the incident unfold from home during a birthday livestream . Ordinary stalking under the Act carries up to three years' imprisonment or a fine of up to 30 million won .
Official Sources
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This article was written using information collected and analyzed by NAMANE's in-house K-pop research AI engine. We use AI technology to bring you faster, broader coverage, and in the process some details may occasionally differ from the latest facts. For important information such as dates, venues, and prices, please double-check with official sources.
