Omogbehin Olushola
A South Korean court has sentenced former first lady Kim Keon Hee to four years in jail on corruption charges.
The Seoul High Court gave the sentence during a hearing that was televised live, after finding her partially guilty of involvement in a stock price manipulation scheme and guilty of accepting luxury gifts from the Unification Church.
However, the appellate court upheld her acquittal on a separate charge of violating the Political Funds Act by receiving free opinion polling data from a political associate.
The special counsel accused Kim of taking part in the manipulation of Deutsch Motors shares between 2010 and 2012, generating roughly 810 million won in illicit profits.
Deutsch Motors Chairman Kwon Oh-soo and eight others were convicted two years ago of violating the Capital Markets Act by conducting the scheme, which used more than 150 accounts under 91 names to artificially inflate the company’s share price by nearly 400 percent through coordinated trades and thousands of transactions.
The court said Kim’s decision to entrust accounts and about 2 billion won in funds to Black Pearl Investment went beyond ordinary investment behavior.
“If the defendant had expected the stock price to rise naturally, she would not have allowed the firm to carry out discretionary trading while agreeing to hand over 40 percent of the profits,” the court said. It added that she “not only allowed the stock manipulation cartel to use large sums of money and accounts and share in the profits, but also directly participated in matched trading.”
The appeals court also reversed the lower court’s finding that some of the offenses had exceeded the statute of limitations.
While the first trial treated the manipulations as separate incidents, the appellate court ruled that they constituted a single, continuous act extending through December 2012, thereby holding the charges valid.
According to Korea JoongAng Daily, the court found Kim guilty of graft by accepting all valuables provided by figures linked to the Unification Church, including two Chanel handbags, ginseng extract and a Graff diamond necklace.
The lower court had recognized only one of the handbags as a bribe, citing a lack of clear quid pro quo in the other instance.
The court said “A high level of morality is required of the president’s wife. By engaging in graft, the defendant has severely damaged public trust in state institutions and in the position of the first lady.”
The court consequently ordered the confiscation of the Graff necklace and an additional forfeiture of 20.94 million won.
However, the court upheld Kim’s previous acquittal on charges tied to opinion polling conducted by self-proclaimed political broker Myung Tae-kyun, saying there was insufficient evidence that the surveys were carried out at the request of Kim or her husband.
The court further chastised Kim for refusing to acknowledge wrongdoing and maintaining a defensive stance throughout the proceedings.
“The defendant participated in price manipulation but has consistently denied responsibility,” the court said.
Special counsel Min Joong-ki had sought a combined sentence of 15 years in prison, a 2 billion won fine and forfeiture of 948.6 million won.
