A Prosecution Service insider revealed that Yoon Jae-soon, secretary for general affairs in the presidential secretariat who was subject to disciplinary action on two occasions for sexually problematic behavior when he was a prosecutor, frequently told dirty jokes and made reckless comments. Yoon, who is also a published poet, stirred controversy after news got out that he mentioned the sexual assault in subways and described subways as “a place where the freedom of boys was guaranteed” in one of his published poems. Despite that he frequently stirred trouble with controversial words and actions, Yoon was quickly promoted, and now attention is on the background to his successful career.

According to a report by the Hankook Ilbo on May 16, Yoon was nicknamed EDPS by his colleagues when he was a prosecutor for frequently making comments that could be categorized as sexual harassment. EDPS is short for eumdampaeseol, a Korean word for “dirty jokes.”

According to the Hankook Ilbo, a Prosecution Service insider said that Yun often made inappropriate comments, such as telling a female worker that she “looked like she would taste bad.” Yoon not only caused problems with his sexually harassing comments, but also made degrading comments calling a younger prosecutor “**** head” when he was a grade-4 prosecutor. Reportedly, when the junior prosecutor raised an issue, Yoon reluctantly apologized.

On May 13, the Kyunghyang Shinmun published an exclusive report on Yoon and a poem he published when he was an investigator in the Prosecution Service. The poem portrayed Yoon’s distorted sexual awareness with a description of the subway as “a place where the freedom of boys was guaranteed” along with a specific portrayal of sexual assault.

In If It Is a Road I Must Travel, Yoon’s first collection of poetry published in November 2002, he wrote the poem, “In the Subway.” In it, Yoon described the scene inside the subway and wrote, “At least inside the subway/the freedom of mischievous boys/was still guaranteed.” The poem continues, “They nudge the breasts of voluptuous girls/gently touch their bottoms./Despite that, the girl, unable to say anything/quietly twists her body and simply blushes/only waiting for the next stop/without saying a word.”

In his second collection of poems published in October 2004, I Do Not Know the Heavens, Yoon published the poem “My Eyeballs Are a Virgin.” In it, he describes the “scarlet eyeballs that have yet to fade” and “the Sun still flushed” as a “virgin.” In “The 18th Hole and the 36th Hole and the 54th Hole,” a poem about the golf course, Yoon wrote, “The reason I hit the ball is simple--/it is to put the ball into the hidden hole,” and “To live enjoying myself, I chase/and chase the hole.”

When Yun was a grade-5 prosecutor in the Department of Policy and Planning at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in July 2012, he sexually assaulted a female employee during a department dinner party and received a “warning from the director of inspection.” In October 1996, when he was a junior administrative officer in the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office, he was transferred to another department for engaging in inappropriate physical contact. Shortly after the report on Yoon’s inappropriate sexual actions, the presidential office announced its position and said, “Some are different from fact, and it was not an official disciplinary procedure.”

Secretary Yoon was the head of operation support in the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office when President Yoon Suk-yeol was the prosecutor general and is known as one of the president’s closest aides who has been by his side for 25 years in the Prosecution Service. Secretary Yoon worked with the president when the president was a prosecutor at the Seongnam branch of the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office in 1997 and also in the Central Investigation Division of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office and in the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.