Controversy is growing over the sentencing process after a claim emerged that the prison term read aloud by the presiding judge at Daejeon District Court differed from the sentence written in the judgment delivered afterward.
According to legal sources on the 4th, a single-judge criminal panel at the Daejeon District Court read the disposition on the 16th, saying it would sentence defendant A to eight months in prison in the verdict hearing for a jeonse fraud case. However, A is said to have said that "a few days later, the judgment A's side received stated the sentence as eight years in prison."
A, along with two accomplices, was brought to trial on fraud charges for deceiving victims into believing security deposits for multi-family housing leases in the Daejeon area would be properly returned from 2021 to 2023, thereby taking 14.4 billion won in deposits from 127 people.
It is reported that the judgment stated A led the overall jeonse fraud scheme and played a key role, requiring severe punishment, and thus imposed a sentence of eight years in prison. The accomplices indicted together were also sentenced to prison terms of six years and two years and six months, respectively.
A's side said it applied to correct the judgment on the grounds that the sentence orally pronounced by the judge in court differed from what was written in the judgment, but the request was not granted. In protest, a special appeal was also filed with the Supreme Court.
A's side is said to have noted, "Because the disposition pronounced in court takes precedence, the written judgment should be corrected to match that," and added, "For now, we have filed an appeal based on the sentence in the written judgment, and if the special appeal is not accepted, we will challenge the sentence in the second trial."