Former Dongyang University professor Chung Kyung-sim, who filed a complaint against Dongyang University President Choi Sung-hae and others who claimed her daughter Cho Min's certificate of commendation was fake, was questioned by police.
According to police on the 20th, the anti-corruption investigation unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency summoned the former professor the day before as the complainant and questioned the circumstances of the complaint. The questioning, which began at about 9:30 a.m., reportedly ended at about 8:30 p.m., roughly 11 hours later.
On Sept. 30, the former professor filed a complaint with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency against President Choi, former Vice President Kim, and six other school officials on charges including destruction of evidence and perjury to harm. The gist is that the school issued a certificate of commendation to Cho but falsely testified that it had never done so and also erased related records.
In particular, the former professor's side said through the complaint that evidence had emerged to rebut the ruling that "on the date Cho's certificate of commendation was issued, there were no staff members at the issuing agency, the Language Education Center, making issuance itself impossible." They claim that new internal Dongyang University documents in the name of Language Education Center staff from Aug. and Sept. 2012—periods known to be when no staff worked at the center—have been discovered.
Allegations over Cho's forged certificate of commendation and other admissions issues sparked the so-called "Cho Kuk scandal" in 2019. The former professor received a finalized four-year prison sentence in 2022, and her husband, Rebuilding Korea Party Chairperson Cho Kuk, received a finalized two-year prison sentence in 2024. Both the former professor and Chairperson Cho were released in Aug. this year through the Liberation Day special pardon by the Lee Jae-myung administration.