Desperate man dines and dashes, and hopes for prison time

Posted on : 2016-05-16 17:15 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Like a literary character, destitute 50-year-old man ate without paying at restaurants, saying he’d be better off in jail
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In O. Henry’s short story “The Cop and the Anthem,” protagonist Soapy skips out on his restaurant bill in the hopes of finding a police officer who will send him to prison on a cold winter day. Now he has a real-life analog in South Korea: a man who was arrested recently for eating without paying in order to go to jail. It was his sixth such offense after five bookings without detention.

Seoul‘s Jongam Police Station reported on May 15 that it had arrested a 50-year-old man surnamed Oh and submitted him to prosecutors on charges of habitual fraud for failing to pay bills at restaurants in the city’s Seongbuk and Gangbuk districts. Oh is accused of feasting for free on pork loin soup and fried octopus on six occasions between Oct. 2015 and May 2016.

The police said the total unpaid restaurant bills added up to less than 100,000 won [US$85].

According to police accounts, Oh became the focus of an investigation after telling restaurant owners to send him to prison - even after five previous cases of eating and not paying. In all of those cases, Oh was not detained because of the small amounts involved.

After being apprehended for his sixth free meal this month - pork loin soup - Oh reportedly said, “Going to prison is better than suicide. I‘m going to keep doing this if you don’t send me.”

An investigation into Oh‘s background found that he had experienced a failure with his apartment sales company in 2013 before going to prison until late 2014 on charges of injury and failure to pay restaurant bills. His economic woes continued after his release.

“He said that he hadn’t accomplished anything at other apartment businesses he’d found work at to get back on his feet, and that things had not improved for him,” police said.

In “The Cop and the Anthem,” Soapy eventually does unwittingly get his wish of “three months on the Island.” But with Oh’s unpaid restaurant bills totaling less than 100,000 won, police said it was unclear whether he would be sentenced to serve time.

“It‘s hard to survive - I’m better off in jail,” Oh was reported as saying while being questioned. “I‘m just sorry to those restaurant owners.”

By Bang Jun-ho, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

 

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