Jang Young-ja, once nicknamed a "big spender" for a past 640 billion won bills fraud, filed for a retrial with the Supreme Court over a 15.4 billion won forged check case, but it was dismissed.
According to legal sources, the Supreme Court on Feb. 13 dismissed Jang's petition for a retrial in the 15.4 billion won forged check case, for which a one-year prison sentence had been finalized.
The case in which Jang sought a retrial was the one that led to Jang's fifth detention. In July 2017, after signing an agricultural products supply contract with A, the head of an agricultural products company, Jang was indicted in May 2021 on charges of handing over forged checks worth 15.42 billion won as an advance payment.
Jang was acquitted at the first trial in December the following year. The court found it difficult to conclude that Jang used the checks knowing they were forged.
The appellate court ruled differently. In January last year, the appellate panel found it hard to believe Jang did not know the checks were forged because the method was similar to another case in which Jang was convicted in the past and the serial numbers were consecutive. It sentenced Jang to one year in prison and remanded Jang to custody in court.
Jang immediately appealed the ruling. When the Supreme Court dismissed it in March last year, the sentence was finalized. Jang then filed for a retrial with the Supreme Court on Apr. 8 last year.
The Supreme Court again did not accept Jang's petition. The specific reasons for dismissing the retrial request were not disclosed. However, legal sources noted that, in general, a retrial against a judgment dismissing an appeal is unlikely to be granted unless it falls under any of the grounds for retrial set forth in Article 420, items 1, 2, or 7 of the Criminal Procedure Act.
Article 420 of the Criminal Procedure Act provides that a retrial may be sought when the evidence of the original judgment has been forged or altered (item 1); when testimony, expert opinion, or similar evidence that formed the basis of the original judgment has been proven false (item 2); or when it has been proven by a final judgment that a judge involved in the original judgment, an earlier judgment, or the investigation underlying those judgments, or a prosecutor or judicial police officer involved in bringing the indictment or the investigation underlying that indictment, committed a crime related to their duties (item 7).
Jang was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1982, during the presidency of Chun Doo-hwan, for a 640 billion won bills fraud dubbed the "biggest financial fraud since Dangun." Even after that, Jang's releases and reoffenses were repeated, and recently Jang was sentenced to 10 months in prison at the first trial in another fraud case. Jang is currently on trial on appeal without detention.