Former Unification Church world headquarters chief Yoon Young-ho, accused of handing money and valuables to First Lady Kim Keon-hee and People Power Party lawmaker Kweon Seong-dong to lobby on Unification Church issues, was again sentenced to prison on appeal.
The Criminal Division 6-1 of the Seoul High Court (High Court Judges Kim Jong-woo, Park Jeong-je, and Min Dal-gi) on the 27th sentenced former Deputy Minister Yoon to one year and six months in prison on charges including violating the Political Funds Act, occupational embezzlement, destruction of evidence, and violating the anti-graft law. Former Deputy Minister Yoon had been sentenced to one year and two months in prison in the first trial, but the term increased on appeal.
As in the first trial, the appellate court found former Deputy Minister Yoon guilty of, in July 2022, lobbying First Lady Kim on Unification Church issues through "Geonjin" Jeon Seong-bae and handing over a Graff diamond necklace worth 62.2 million won and a Chanel bag worth 12.71 million won, among other items.
The court also upheld the first-trial guilty finding on the charge that, in January 2022, while requesting support for a Unification Church event, he provided 100 million won in illegal political funds to lawmaker Kweon, who was close to then-People Power Party presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol.
The first trial had found former Deputy Minister Yoon partially not guilty on the charge of embezzling Unification Church funds to buy the bag and necklace, but the appellate court found him guilty on all counts.
The issue was whether the bag handed over at the time constituted a violation of the anti-graft law, given that before former President Yoon took office, the first lady was not yet the spouse of a public official. The appellate court said, "Even before the president took office, there is no essential difference in the illegality of using funds from a religious organization under the pretext of giving a gift to the spouse in order to lobby the president-elect."