A 20-year-old Oregon Institute of Technology engineering student from Portland remains stranded in South Korea nearly three months after a mental health crisis led to his arrest, even though a South Korean court has since acquitted him. His family says a prosecutor's appeal and an exit ban are keeping him from coming home, and the bills keep piling up while they wait.
According to KOIN.com, the student had been studying at Jeonbuk National University through a program that was not an official Oregon Tech exchange. His mother, Iris Cox, told the station he blacked out on June 22 and, per the family, experienced a mental health crisis connected to a history of epileptic seizures. Security cameras captured him opening packages and taking small items inside a dentist's office, and he bent a pair of glasses while there. KOIN also reported that he has autism.
Cox told KOIN that her son was arrested on charges of theft and trespassing, and that the property damage from the incident totaled about $170. He spent roughly 40 days in jail, according to the outlet, and Cox said most of that time was in solitary confinement, during which his psychological condition worsened.
Court Cleared Him, But Prosecutors Appealed
A South Korean court ultimately found that the student lacked criminal responsibility and acquitted him — but the prosecutor appealed that acquittal, per KOIN's reporting. Under Article 10, Paragraph 1 of South Korea's Criminal Act, someone incapable of discriminating right from wrong or controlling their will because of a mental disorder is absolved of criminal responsibility and cannot be punished, according to Asia News Network. That statute formed the legal basis for the acquittal.
The Federal Judicial Center discusses appeals in comparative criminal procedure, but the student's ordeal isn't over just because a trial court sided with him.
An Exit Ban Keeps Him From Leaving
Even after his family posted bail, the student cannot leave South Korea, the report notes. Prosecutors can request a departure prohibition, or exit ban, from the Ministry of Justice during criminal proceedings under Article 4 of the Immigration Control Act and the Criminal Procedure Act, according to the Yeohae Law Firm, which prevents foreign nationals from leaving the country even after release from detention. The firm discusses ways to oppose or stop an exit ban.
There is recent precedent that could bolster such a challenge. In an October 2025 administrative decision, the Seoul High Court ruled that maintaining long-term, open-ended departure prohibitions without a clear timeline or investigation schedule unlawfully infringes on constitutional rights, according to The Chosun Daily. The reporting does not say whether the student's defense team pursued a challenge to the ban.
Family Says Bills Are Adding Up
The student's family says his bail and attorney fees are adding up, and his mother has told the outlet the family cannot continue paying those costs indefinitely. His father, Ben Cox, has stayed in South Korea with him, while Iris Cox has appealed to lawmakers for help, hoping her son can return home for the mental health care he needs.
That appeal reached the office of Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, whose staff contacted the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. The embassy responded that it was unable to intervene in South Korea's internal judicial decisions, per its response to Wyden's office. The State Department's guidance addresses consular assistance for Americans arrested abroad, according to the U.S. Department of State.
Article 36 of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations requires host countries to notify foreign embassies when they detain a citizen and to guarantee consular visitation rights. The reporting does not say whether those provisions governed this case. The reporting also does not describe internal State Department reporting protocols or indicate that this case triggered them.
KOIN.com is not showing or naming the engineering student in its coverage. For now, his family says he remains in South Korea with his father, acquitted but not free to leave, as they wait to see whether the prosecutor's appeal — and the exit ban tied to it — will finally be resolved.
