A South Korean court has sentenced Kim, the director of a care facility in Incheon called Saekdongwon, to 15 years in prison for sexually assaulting multiple residents with disabilities. The Seoul court found him guilty of sexually assaulting three individuals and injuring one survivor who resisted by throwing a glass cup at his head. Kim denied all allegations of sexual assault. As part of the sentencing, the court banned him from working at any facility serving people with disabilities, children, or young people for 10 years and ordered him to be on probation for three years after his release. The ruling can still be appealed. The court cleared Kim of one charge of raping a resident because prosecutors were unable to prove the required level of violence or intimidation necessary to legally define the act as rape. However, the court acknowledged that the act still constituted sexual violence that caused humiliation to a person with disabilities, violating the Welfare of Persons with Disabilities Act. For an act to be classified as rape under the law, there must be evidence of violence or intimidation that rendered the victim unable to resist, which the court found lacking in this case. The investigation into Kim began after a survivor with severe intellectual disabilities reported the assault in February. Kim was arrested on February 20 following the investigation. The allegations led the South Korean government to conduct inspections at 1,507 care facilities for disabled people across the country. These inspections were aimed at identifying potential abuse and improving oversight in such facilities. Ko Eun Young, the lawyer representing the survivors, emphasized that the Saekdongwon case is not just about an individual's misconduct, but also about systemic and organizational failures that allowed the abuse to occur. Ko expressed hope that the court's ruling would bring some comfort to the victims and their families and serve as a foundation for making residential facilities for people with disabilities more transparent and safer in the future.