On May 20, the Seoul Central Prosecutor's Office said it had requested an arrest warrant for Kim Se Ui - representative of the YouTube channel Garo Sero Institute.
This move was made after the Gangnam Police Station (Seoul) applied for an arrest warrant for Kim Se Ui on May 14, on charges of violating the Special Law on the Punishment of Sexual Crimes (video recording, camera dissemination...), defamation and many other charges.
Kim Se Ui is accused of spreading false information through YouTube livestreams such as Kim Soo Hyun dating Kim Sae Ron when she was a minor, and also claiming that the direct cause of Kim Sae Ron's death was debt pressure from Kim Soo Hyun.
This YouTuber is also accused of using artificial intelligence (AI) to impersonate Kim Sae Ron's voice to create false information, thereby damaging Kim Soo Hyun's reputation.
It is known that in the arrest warrant application, the police stated the reasons including: the severity of the crime, the risk of recidivism, the possibility of destroying evidence and fleeing, the risk of harming the victim and important witnesses.
The interrogation of the suspect before the arrest decision (reviewing the necessity of the arrest warrant) for Kim Se Ui will take place at 10:30 am on May 26, at the Seoul Central Court.
Since March last year, Kim Se Ui has continuously broadcast on YouTube images and chat content believed to be from the time Kim Soo Hyun and Kim Sae Ron dated in the past.
During that process, Kim Se Ui also broadcast photos recording Kim Soo Hyun's body.
After that, Kim Soo Hyun's management company, Gold Medalist, said: "These are photos that may be sexually embarrassing because they record private bodies, they should not be made public and there is no reason to make them public", and at the same time accused Kim Se Ui and related people of allegedly spreading camera images under the Special Law on Sexual Crimes.
The climax was in May 2025, Kim Se Ui and Kim Sae Ron's family held a press conference and announced a recording stating that "Kim Soo Hyun dated Kim Sae Ron since she was a minor".
In response, Kim Soo Hyun's side said that this was "a record edited by AI" and accused Kim Se Ui of crimes such as difamation.
The police therefore requested the National Institute of Criminal Science (NFS) of South Korea to examine the controversial recording. However, in November last year, the NFS concluded that it was "impossible to determine" whether the recording file was interfered with by AI.
