“Valet parking staff mistake” → “Automatically open vehicle” explanation overturned
Police are investigating restaurant CCTV analysis
Shin Hye-seong (real name Jeong Pil-gyo, 43), a member of Shinhwa, who was arrested and released on charges of refusing to take a breathalyzer, was found to be of a completely different vehicle from the vehicle Shin usually drives.
According to the police on the 12th, the vehicle Shin owned is a white Mercedes-Benz coupe, and the vehicle that fell asleep while driving the day before was a white Genesis SUV (sport utility vehicle).
The two models only have the same color, but there are obvious differences in appearance, such as size and height.
The circumstances in which Shin got into the Genesis SUV is the key to whether the refusal to take breathalyzer and theft charges apply.
The Songpa Police Station in Seoul is reconstructing the situation at the time by analyzing closed circuit (CC) TV near a restaurant in Gangnam-gu that Shin drank alcohol on the followingnoon of the 10th and synthesizing the statements of restaurant officials.
Shin’s explanations regarding the process of driving someone else’s car come and go.
Liveworks Company, the management company, explained that the morning before the arrest was announced, “the employee in charge of valet parking at a restaurant handed someone else’s car key to drive.”
However, as reports came out one following another that contradicted this explanation regarding Shin’s whereregardings following drinking, at 11:50 pm on the same day, another explanation was given through a legal representative.
It is said that he did not receive the key from the valet parking staff, but got into someone else’s car by mistaken for a car.
According to the legal representative, Shin had dinner with his acquaintances at a restaurant in Gangnam-gu, Seoul from around 6 pm on the 10th.
It is said that the valet parking fee is paid in advance, and if the parking staff leaves work first, the key is left in the car.
Shin, who left the restaurant in a state of intoxication, claimed that when the door of a nearby car was opened, he mistook it for his own car and boarded it, the lawyer said.
He thought that his car’s smart key in the bag acted and that the car was automatically opened.
Afterwards, a surrogate driver called by Shin’s acquaintance drove the car to the acquaintance’s house, and following dropping off the acquaintance, Shin drove home without a surrogate driver and fell asleep in the car, the lawyer explained.
Shin added that through the CCTV in front of the restaurant, the surrogate driver arrived at 0:05 on the 11th and confirmed that the vehicle driven by the surrogate driver had departed 3 minutes later.
Shin, who was driving someone else’s car, was arrested at 1:40 a.m. the day before, stopped at Tancheon 2 School in Songpa-gu, Seoul, and fell asleep on charges of refusing to take a breathalyzer test.
In the course of the investigation, it was confirmed that a theft report was received for the Genesis SUV that Shin was riding, and the charge of theft was added.
/yunhap news
