It belatedly became known that former Samsung Electro-Mechanics adviser Lim Woo-jae was sentenced to prison in the first trial on charges of conspiring to file a false missing-person report to help a shaman girlfriend who committed the "assault and confinement of an elderly woman in her 80s."
According to legal sources on the 23rd, the Uijeongbu District Court on Dec. 30 last year sentenced the former adviser Lim to one year in prison on charges of obstruction of the performance of official duties by deceptive schemes.
The first-instance court said, "To help his girlfriend avoid punishment, (the former adviser Lim) played a key role in the plan to obstruct official duties by deceptive schemes and took part in fabricating evidence even up to the court stage," adding, "He also hurled insults at the victim and, having seen the victim after the assault, appears to have recognized the facts of confinement and assault."
The case unfolded in Yeoncheon County, Gyeonggi, in April last year. Shaman B, who had fallen out with the son of Ms. A, an elderly woman in her 80s, had Ms. A's grandson and others lock Ms. A in her house to watch her and assault her. It was found that, under B's psychological control, the grandson committed a brutal crime against his grandmother.
Ms. A escaped and reported it, and the police launched an investigation. Then B staged a fake suicide drama. B had Ms. A's granddaughter send a will-style text message to her family saying she was scared by coercive questioning and did not want to live. Ms. A's grandson filed a missing-person report for his younger sister.
Police and fire authorities, acting on a report of a suspected suicide, began a search, and closed-circuit (CC)TV captured former adviser Lim moving with B while giving a ride to the granddaughter. It was revealed to have been a false missing-person report.
B and the grandson and others were indicted together on charges including aggravated unlawful confinement and obstruction of the performance of official duties by deceptive schemes. B was sentenced to six years in prison, and the grandson was sentenced to three years.
Former adviser Lim is the ex-husband of Hotel Shilla President Lee Boo-jin. They married in 1999, but in 2014 they began divorce proceedings. The case continued for more than five years up to the Supreme Court.
In 2020, the Supreme Court finalized the lower court ruling that partially found for the plaintiff in the appeal of the divorce lawsuit Lee filed against former adviser Lim. The second-instance ruling, which held that Lee would pay former adviser Lim 14.113 billion won as property partitioning and that parental and custodial rights over the child belonged to Lee, was upheld as is.