The scandal blew up after Sohn met with the freelance reporter, identified as Kim (48) in a bar in Sangam-dong in northwestern Seoul on Jan. 10, where Kim claims Sohn assaulted him when Kim threatened to expose him over a hit-and-run accident.

Sohn Suk-hee, the chief and main anchor of cable channel JTBC, offered a freelance reporter hundreds of millions of service fees to keep him from going public with assault allegations, it was revealed Sunday.

Sohn has denied the charge and said he merely "tapped" Kim a few times after the reporter tried to blackmail him for a job. But on Jan. 18, Sohn met Kim again with Kim's lawyer and offered him vast amounts of money and a job to keep him quiet. The deal fell through when Kim demanded that Sohn sign the agreement on paper.

Sohn told the lawyer, surnamed Yang, that Kim had been blackmailing him for a job for five months. But Sohn did not report Kim to police and sent Yang a text message on Jan. 19 offering Kim a two-year service contract and guaranteeing W10 million in monthly earnings (US$1=W1,122).

Sohn had asked the reporter for his resume when Kim came to interview him about a hit-and-run accident Sohn was involved in. "Let's look for ways we can help each other," Kim quoted Sohn as saying. Sohn then seems to have spent the next five months looking for ways to find Kim a job at JTBC that would be acceptable to him.

In one text message, he offered Kim a one-year employment contract that could be switched to a permanent position depending on performance. When Kim still threatened to go public with the accident, Sohn apparently offered the investment and service fee deal instead. He appears to have been extremely anxious that JTBC should not find out about his woes and did not allow Kim to visit his office.

Suh Jung-wook at law firm Minjoo said Sohn's actions may carry a criminal charge of breach of trust since he was offering to use company funds to get himself out of trouble. "In this case, he did not actually pay any money, so he could be charged with attempted breach of trust."

But another attorney said Sohn was already guilty of breach of trust because he committed an act damaging to the interests of a corporate entity in the pursuit of personal objectives.

On last Thursday's JTBC evening news, which he anchors, Sohn said, "I also have many things to say, but will only state at this point that [the claims] are totally false." Sohn and JTBC have not responded to the Chosun Ilbo's requests for further comment.

But Sohn also wrote a message on a website run by his fan club last Thursday evening saying, "It looks like I'll be involved in a drawn-out fight. I believe the truth will be revealed. I won't be shaken. Don't worry." The post attracted more than 300 comments over the next three days, most of them supportive.

Meanwhile, the puzzle is growing why Sohn was so eager to keep the very minor fender bender quiet. Kim has told police that the driver of the pickup truck Sohn hit in a parking lot in Gwacheon one night in 2017 told police that a young woman had been sitting next to the star anchor.

Sohn in another statement vehemently denied that a woman was in the car with him and accused Kim of trying to smear him to gain the upper hand. He said he submitted evidence to police proving there was no woman in the car with him that night.

The truck driver told the Chosun Ilbo, "The car that hit me started driving away, so I chased after it for about 1 km and banged on the window, but the car drove away again. I chased after the car with others, and it finally stopped and Sohn got out."

There seem to be no other witnesses who saw a woman in the car. In a transcript of a recorded telephone call between Kim and Sohn in August last year, the anchor says nobody was in the car with him.

But in another recorded phone call between the two on Jan. 18, Kim asks Sohn if he was with his mother in the car and Sohn responds, "That was out of necessity."