Small business owner secretly fed diarrhea medicine to employee who said, “I’m quitting”

Indicted without detention on charges of joint assault

A small business owner who secretly fed diarrhea-inducing powder to an employee who had expressed his intention to resign was brought to trial.

According to the prosecution on the 20th, Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office’s 4th Criminal Division (Chief Prosecutor Yong Tae-ho) indicted Mr. A, a 30-year-old small business owner, and employee Mr. B without detention the previous day on charges of joint assault under the Act on the Punishment, etc. of Acts of Violence.

The incident occurred at around 3:50 PM on April 26th last year at a small business in Seo-gu, Incheon.

Person A and others are accused of causing harm to employee C, a man in his 40s, by making him drink a powdered beverage that caused diarrhea and stomachache.

Mr. C left the company the month after the incident and filed a complaint with the police regarding this incident. According to the police investigation, the company’s internal CCTV footage showed Mr. A grinding the suspicious pills into powder in a coffee grinder and putting them in juice.

It was found that Mr. C, who drank the juice they gave him, complained of stomach pain and received treatment at a hospital.

In a police investigation, Mr. A and others denied the charges, saying, “We were going to eat it” and “We did not give it to Mr. C.”

The prosecution indicted Mr. A and others, believing that they committed the crime immediately after Mr. C announced his intention to resign following an argument with him while on a business trip abroad.

A prosecutor said, “We indicted Mr. A and others last July,” and “We will thoroughly prepare for the trial to ensure that they receive a punishment appropriate to their crime.”

Cases of companies ‘retaliating’ against employees who have resigned out of resentment often occur overseas as well.

In January 2021, a ‘coin terrorism’ incident in Georgia, USA, became a hot topic when a resentful employee was given 91,500 coins covered in grease to quit his job due to unpaid wages.

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