Prosecutors decided not to indict former Hwacheon Daeyu Asset Management (Hwacheon Daeyu) CEO Lee Sung-moon, who was suspected of handing 5 billion won to the son of former People Power Party lawmaker Kwak Sang-do as retirement pay and other benefits.
According to legal sources on the 7th, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office's Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 1 (Chief Prosecutor Guk Won) cleared Lee of charges of breach of trust and bribery under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes.
Prosecutors also decided not to indict an accounting manager, a person surnamed Kim, who had been accused of the same charges as Lee.
The "50 billion won severance pay suspicion" concerns allegations that in Apr. 2021, during the Daejang-dong project, former lawmaker Kwak received about 2.5 billion won in return for brokering a request to prevent the Hana Bank consortium from breaking away from major shareholder Kim Man-bae of Hwacheon Daeyu and as a bribe related to his duties as a member of the National Assembly.
There was also controversy that the money was disguised as or hidden as severance and performance bonuses for his son, Byeong-chae, who worked at Hwacheon Daeyu. In response, the civic group Citizens' Coalition for Clearing Out Deep-rooted Evils filed a complaint against former lawmaker Kwak, former CEO Lee, and others at the end of 2021, and prosecutors detained and indicted former lawmaker Kwak in Feb. 2022. However, the Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Agreement Division 22 (Presiding Judge Lee Jun-cheol) on Feb. 8, 2023, acquitted former lawmaker Kwak of violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes (mediation bribery), and imposed only an 8 million won fine for violating the Political Funds Act.
Subsequently, on Oct. 31, 2023, prosecutors indicted former lawmaker Kwak without detention for violating the Act on the Regulation and Punishment of Criminal Proceeds Concealment, and indicted his son, Byeong-chae, without detention for violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes (bribery). But the Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Agreement Division 23 (Chief Judge Oh Se-yong) on Feb. 6 ruled not guilty for Byeong-chae and dismissed the indictment for former lawmaker Kwak.