K-pop star ex-NCT member Taeil pleads guilty to rape charges, prosecutors demand 7 years of imprisonment

Taeil

Former NCT member Taeil, aka Moon Tae-il, has reportedly pleaded guilty to charges of ‘aggravated' rape. After pleading guilty, the prosecutors are reportedly demanding that the court punish the K-pop star with a seven-year prison sentence. Notably, the first trial of Taeil's sex crime case took place on Wednesday, which is over a year after the incident occurred.

Taeil pleads guilty to rape charges

In February 2025, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office's Women and Children's Crime Investigation Division 1 charged Taeil along with his two accomplices on charges of aggravated rape under the Act on the Punishment of Sexual Crimes. They were reportedly accused of sexually assaulting an intoxicated woman in June last year.

After the prosecution shared these accusations on Wednesday during the hearing, Taeil and the two other accused pleaded guilt to the rape in court. As a result, the prosecution has now demanded a seven-year prison sentence for each of the accused. According to mk.co.kr, the prosecution said, "The defendants are considering taking into account the sentencing with their own letters, but it is difficult to say that this is a true surrender. After two months of police investigation, the defendants were identified and raided, and after that, they submitted their own letters."

They added, "It is an inappropriate argument to consider sentencing for each other. Especially, it does not fall under the legal requirements. It undermines the meaning of embroidery." The defendant, on the other hand, reportedly stressed that it was an accidental crime and not a planned crime.

About Taeil's case

The prosecution, during the trial, claimed that Taeil and his two friends met the victim at a bar around 2:30 am. They noted that although there are high chances of them being strangers, they still drank together. Later, the accused forced her into a taxi and took her to one of the men's homes in Bangbae, which is a district in Seoul. Between 4:00 am and 4:30 am that night, the woman, who was in an unconscious and heavily drunk state, was sexually assaulted by the men.

The prosecutors also claim it was not a random crime but a pre-planned one. The police also discovered text exchanges where they spoke about a particular foreign woman. The accused also discussed changing the GPS settings in the taxi to cover up the location of the crime. It reportedly took 2 months for the police to check the CCTV footage to ascertain exactly what happened.

After being booked in June last year, SM Entertainment announced that Taeil would no longer be a member of NCT in August 2024. The 31-year-old was later removed as an artist from the company. Notably, Taeil debuted as NCT's first unit, NCT U, in 2016 and was also a member of NCT and NCT 127.