Indicted on habitual gambling, road traffic law violations

Drove about 100 km from Incheon to Yangpyeong last year

Blood alcohol level measured at 0.12%

Faces trial on illegal online gambling charges as well

Comedian Lee Jin-ho [Newsis]
Comedian Lee Jin-ho [Newsis]

Comedian Lee Jin-ho, 40, has been indicted on charges of illegal gambling and drunk driving, it emerged Friday.

According to legal sources, the Yeoju branch of the Suwon District Prosecutors Office indicted Lee without detention on May 29 on charges of habitual gambling and violating the Road Traffic Act through drunk driving.

Lee is accused of driving approximately 100 kilometers from Incheon to his residence in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province, while intoxicated in the early hours of Sept. 24 last year.

Police measured his blood alcohol concentration at 0.11 percent at the time, already above the threshold for license revocation. Lee then requested a blood test, and the National Forensic Service confirmed his blood alcohol concentration at 0.12 percent.

Separate from the drunk driving charge, Lee also faces allegations of gambling on multiple occasions through illegal online gambling sites.

Police launched their investigation after receiving a civil complaint through the National Sinmungo system requesting a probe into Lee on gambling and fraud allegations, then referred the case to prosecutors. Prosecutors applied charges including habitual gambling based on the investigation findings and indicted him.

In an Instagram post in October last year, Lee wrote that he "started playing on an illegal online gambling site by chance in 2020 and ended up saddled with debt I could barely manage."

Lee recently collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage and received treatment in an intensive care unit.


kwater@heraldcorp.com