SEOUL – The Seoul Central District Court on Wednesday sentenced former first lady Kim Keon Hee to one year and eight months in prison and issued a forfeiture order of 12.8 million won ($9,000), finding her guilty of receiving bribes from the Unification Church.
The court acquitted Kim of her other charges, including her alleged participation in the Deutsch Motors stock manipulation scheme and the illegal obtaining of public opinion polling data from a close aide.
“The defendant abused her position for her own personal gain,” Judge Woo In-sung said in the ruling. “She failed to reject high-value luxury goods offered in connection with the Unification Church’s lobbying efforts and instead accepted them for her own personal adornment.”
The court found Kim guilty of receiving two Chanel handbags, ginseng extract tea and a diamond necklace from Unification Church official Yun Young-ho, concluding that the gifts were provided with the expectation that she would relay the church’s policy interests to then-presidential candidate Yoon Suk Yeol.
The court ordered the diamond necklace to be confiscated and issued a forfeiture order for the Chanel handbags and ginseng tea.
“The defendant stood above Korean law,” Special Counsel Min Joong-ki said in his final statement in December. “Kim colluded with a religious organization, undermining the constitutional principle of separation between religion and state and eroding the fairness of elections, a cornerstone of democracy, as well as the representative system of governance.”
But the special counsel had brought a raft of other charges, recommending a sentence of 15 years in prison and a fine of 2 billion won. The counsel explained that it had sought a heavy sentence after determining that Kim had delayed and evaded court proceedings related to the Deutsch Motors case by leveraging her status as first lady.
But the court dismissed the stock manipulation charges, which relate to financial misconduct that occurred between 2009 and 2012.
In 2024, Deutsch Motors Chairman Kwon Oh-soo and eight others were sentenced to prison for mobilizing more than 150 stock trading accounts under the names of 91 individuals. They were found guilty of artificially inflating the company’s share price by nearly 400 percent through 101 instances of collusive trading and 3,083 market transactions.
The special counsel had accused Kim of being an accomplice to Kwon, arguing that accounts under the name of her mother were used in the manipulation scheme and that Kim herself held stocks and an executive title at Deutsch Motors during the period in question.
The court acknowledged that Kim likely knew her funds were being used in the manipulation but said there was insufficient evidence to conclude that she was an active accomplice.
The special counsel had also claimed that Kim received 58 sets of public opinion polling data from pollster Myung Tae-kyun in the run-up to the 2022 presidential election in return for Kim Young-sun’s nomination in a legislative by-election.
However, the court said it was difficult to determine that Myung conducted the polls with the intent of exclusively providing them to the former first lady, and that there was little evidence linking Rep. Kim Young-sun’s nomination to Myung’s actions.
In issuing the sentence, the court said it considered the higher standards expected of someone in Kim’s position.
“As first lady, the defendant was an influential figure who represented the country along with the president. The office requires befitting behavior and a heightened sense of integrity,” it said. “The defendant may fall short of leading by example, but should never have become a warning example.”
But the court added that it had taken into account Kim’s expressions of remorse, the fact that the Unification Church had approached her, and that she had not directly solicited any bribes.
The special counsel said it would appeal the ruling.
“The ruling is difficult to accept either legally or rationally,” the special counsel team said after the verdict. “The court’s sentencing assessment with respect to the guilty findings was also extremely inadequate in light of the nature of the case, and we plan to file an appeal to correct this.”
Kim’s lawyers welcomed the acquittals but said they were considering an appeal of the bribery conviction as well.
“We thank the court for ruling solely based on the law and conscience,” Kim’s attorney told reporters after the verdict. “The sentence for receiving bribes for brokerage is somewhat higher than expected, but we will review taking it to an appellate court.”
Kim faces two additional trials on charges of influencing the People Power Party’s leadership race through the mass enrollment of Unification Church members and of selling public offices.
Her conviction on Wednesday follows a separate ruling on Jan. 16 in which a Seoul court sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to five years in prison over charges related to the 2024 martial law attempt, making the pair the first former presidential couple in Korean history to receive prison sentences in the same period.
ANN/The Korea Herald
