Kim Tae-hoon, chief prosecutor of the Daejeon High Prosecutors' Office (now head of the Joint Prosecutors-Police Task Force on religious-secular collusion), who first investigated the Deutsch Motors stock manipulation allegations, said on the 28th that the first-instance ruling that acquitted Kim Keon-hee of involvement in Deutsch Motors stock manipulation was unjust. In the sentencing hearing that day, the court found her guilty only of accepting money and valuables from the Unification Church, while finding her not guilty of the remaining charges.
According to legal sources, that afternoon Kim posted a message on the prosecution's intranet, e-Pros, titled "As a member of the first Deutsch Motors investigation team, I share my views on this ruling."
Kim said, "Even while acknowledging Kim Keon-hee's awareness of Deutsch Motors stock manipulation, the first-instance ruling that acquitted her of being a joint principal offender in Deutsch Motors stock manipulation runs counter to the thrust of prior rulings that recognized the charges of Deutsch Motors stock manipulation co-conspirators such as Kwon Oh-soo (former Deutsch Motors chairman) and Lee Jong-ho (former Black Invest CEO), and is an unjust ruling in light of the legal principles on joint principal liability and a single comprehensive offense."
Kim said, "In the rulings against Kwon Oh-soo and others, it was recognized that Kim Keon-hee took part in numerous collusive trades," adding, "It was recognized in prior rulings that the 2 billion won Kim Keon-hee provided to Black Pearl (Invest) was used at Black Pearl as a key fund for Deutsch Motors stock manipulation."
He continued, "Even though it was confirmed that collusive trading and large-scale purchases of Deutsch Motors shares using Kim Keon-hee's funds contributed to the rise in Deutsch Motors' stock price, the failure to recognize Kim Keon-hee as a joint principal offender contradicts established case law that a joint principal can be established through functional control of the act based on a division of labor."
Kim also pointed out that the ruling runs counter to the legal principles on participants in a "single comprehensive offense" that treats a series of acts as one crime, as well as to the determination of aiding and abetting. He said, "Even if someone participated only in part of a single comprehensive offense, the statute of limitations runs not from the end of that person's own conduct, but from the end of the single comprehensive offense in which they participated."
He added, "Meanwhile, the determination that the statute of limitations had expired by separating off conduct around Oct. 2010–Jan. 2011 contradicts established case law on when the statute of limitations begins to run for accomplices to a single comprehensive offense."
Kim also said, "As a member of the first investigation team that investigated and arrested co-conspirators in Deutsch Motors stock manipulation, including Kwon Oh-soo and Lee Jong-ho, I find it hard to accept the court's decision acquitting Kim Keon-hee of violating the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act, and I hope it will be corrected on appeal."
The 27th Criminal Division of the Seoul Central District Court's panel (presiding judge Woo In-seong) sentenced her to 1 year and 8 months in prison that day. The court found her guilty of accepting money and valuables from the Unification Church, but acquitted her of the charge of participating in Deutsch Motors stock manipulation (violation of the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act) and of the charge of receiving polling results free of charge from a political broker known as Myeong Tae-gyun (violation of the Political Funds Act).