The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) has charged Lee Jeong-seob, a Daejeon High Prosecutors' Office prosecutor, with illegally accessing and leaking criminal records of his brother-in-law’s housekeeper. This decision was made just a day before the statute of limitations for the case.
On the 28th, the CIO's investigative division 4 said, “We have charged this prosecutor with leaking official secrets for personal reasons after accessing the criminal records of the housekeeper for his brother-in-law through a junior prosecutor.”
This prosecutor is accused of having instructed a junior prosecutor to check the criminal records of a housekeeper working at his brother-in-law’s home, at the request of his in-laws, around March 30, 2020, while he was serving as the Director General of the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office. The records were allegedly leaked to his brother-in-law through his spouse.
The allegations against this prosecutor were raised by former Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Eui-gyeom during a National Assembly inspection in October 2023. This prosecutor was the chief deputy prosecutor at the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office, overseeing the investigation into the alleged illicit remittance to North Korea involving Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung.
Former lawmaker Kim alleged that this prosecutor accessed and improperly leaked the housekeeper's criminal records, as well as raised issues related to ▲ unlawful residence registration ▲ accepting resort room fees from a major corporation's executive. The prosecutor was charged on the 6th for violations of the Resident Registration Act and the Act on the Prohibition of Excessive Lobbying in relation to the allegations of unlawful residence registration and accepting room fees.
The CIO received the charge of leaking official secrets. The CIO stated, “It has been confirmed that this prosecutor accessed comprehensive case searches, case processing information, and court verdicts related to the housekeeper, as well as the search and output history of the housekeeper’s criminal judgment documents.”
Meanwhile, following the allegations raised by former lawmaker Kim, the Supreme Public Prosecutors' Office excluded this prosecutor from duty and reassigned him to the Daejeon High Prosecutors' Office.