South Korean President Park Geun-hye abruptly fired her spokesman, Yoon Chang-jung, today, after the 56-year-old was accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a DC hotel on Tuesday. In an incident that casts a sour note on Park's otherwise successful trip to Washington, police said they were investigating a report from a Korean-American woman in her early 20s that a man had "grabbed her buttocks without her permission." While the police report didn't identify Yoon, a post on a Korean-American community online did, Yonhap News reports; it notes the report also recorded the suspect's age as 56.
The victim is reportedly an intern at the South Korean embassy in DC. Word of the scandal broke as Park was en route to LA for the last stop of her US visit. Yoon hadn't accompanied her, instead returning to Seoul where presidential officials are said to have grilled him about the encounter. The opposition Democratic Party rushed to make hay of the incident, calling it a "foreseeable tragedy" and demanding a public apology. (More South Korea stories.)
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