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Via Pirates Prospects (sub. req’d), Jeeho Yoo is reporting that the appellate court in Korea has rejected Jung-Ho Kang’s attempt to have his sentence for DUI reduced.
#Pirates Jung Ho Kang has lost his appeal of an earlier DUI sentence. Court has upheld the suspended sentence.
— Jeeho Yoo (@Jeeho_1) May 18, 2017
Court said Kang's DUI was serious enough to warrant the sentence (8 mos, suspended for 2 yrs; won't actually be in jail if clean for 2 yrs)
— Jeeho Yoo (@Jeeho_1) May 18, 2017
It appears that Kang argued to the court that his visa application had been rejected due to the sentence, probably as part of an argument that the sentence was too harsh because it prevented him from resuming his career.
Kang's application for U.S. visa was rejected after original ruling; court didn't buy Kang's argument that those two events were connected
— Jeeho Yoo (@Jeeho_1) May 18, 2017
Without really having much in the way of specifics, I can see two possibilities. One is that the sentence wasn’t the reason for the visa being denied. If that’s the case, there might be some other manner in which Kang can satisfy the US authorities and eventually get a work visa, although I have no idea what that would be. The other possibility is that the Korean court has it wrong and the sentence was the reason for the denial. If that’s the case, then Kang will almost certainly miss at least the next two years.
The bottom line is that it appears extremely unlikely Kang will play this year and fairly likely that he’ll never play in MLB again.