Former President Yoon Suk-yeol, who was brought to trial on charges of receiving expensive polling for free from political broker Myeong Tae-gyun, was sentenced to two years in prison in the first trial. First lady Kim Keon-hee, who was separately indicted on the same charge, was acquitted in both the first and second trials, but the panel in Yoon's case found that a crime was established.
The Criminal Agreement Division 33 of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judge Lee Jin-gwan, Director General) on the 13th sentenced former President Yoon to two years in prison and ordered a forfeiture of a little over 13.96 million won in the verdict hearing on the case of violating the Political Funds Act. Myeong, who was indicted alongside him, was sentenced to one year and six months in prison. Myeong, who had stood trial without detention, was taken into custody in court on the grounds of a risk of evidence destruction.
Earlier, the special counsel team on Kim Keon-hee sought four years in prison and a forfeiture of 137.2 million won for former President Yoon, and three years in prison for Myeong.
Former President Yoon was indicted in December last year on charges of colluding with the first lady to receive for free a total of 58 polls worth a little over 270 million won from Myeong between June 2021 and March 2022. During the same period, Myeong was charged with providing the polls free of charge to the former presidential couple.
The court recognized 14 instances of free polling among the overall charges as violations of the Political Funds Act. It calculated the property gain Yoon's side obtained from the crime at a little over 27.92 million won.
The court also recognized a quid pro quo between the provision of polls and party nominations. It found that former President Yoon promised Myeong the nomination of former People Power Party lawmaker Kim Young-sun in return for receiving polls, and later exerted influence on the People Power Party's nominations through Jang Je-won, then transition team chief of staff to the president-elect.
The court also concluded there was an implicit agreement among the former presidential couple and Myeong regarding the provision of polls. The court said, "Kim Keon-hee delegated to Myeong Tae-gyun the timing, content, method, and whether to publish the polls, and Yoon Suk-yeol was informed of these details and implicitly consented," adding, "Thus, there was a sequential and tacit meeting of the minds between the Yoon couple and Myeong Tae-gyun regarding the provision of polls."
The court pointed out that providing polls for free could undermine election fairness. The court said, "The free provision of polls can allow a polling institute to form collusive ties and distort results, harming the fairness of the election itself and seriously endangering democracy." It added that four nonpublic polls had inflated, false samples that skewed the results, and that the public polls were constructed with samples favorable to the former president.
The court said the distorted polls may have also affected the political sphere internally. The court stated, "They were delivered to various politicians as if they were objective polls, with a high likelihood of influencing intra-party politics, and it cannot be definitively said that they did not affect the People Power Party's presidential primary."
In explaining the sentence, the court also mentioned the former president's attitude. The court said, "Given how the polls were received from Myeong Tae-gyun and the resulting effects, the defendant's conduct fuels political distrust and undermines public confidence in the development of democracy." It added that the former president made claims to investigators that conflicted with objective evidence, such as "I didn't know Myeong Tae-gyun was conducting polls," and in court retorted, "Do you have evidence? Submit the evidence," concluding that "punishment commensurate with the wrongdoing is inevitable."
The court also found that Myeong's responsibility was not small. It noted that Myeong made the sampling method favorable to the former president or inflated sample values. The court added, "The defendant's crimes undermine the purpose of the Political Funds Act, which seeks the sound development of democratic politics," and "even so, the defendant showed no remorse, advancing claims in court that were hard to accept."
This ruling directly diverges from the outcome in the first lady's case. The first lady faced a separate trial on allegations that she colluded with the former president to receive the same polls for free, but she was acquitted in both the first trial and the appeal. The panel in the first lady's case found that, among other things, Myeong provided polls not only to the former presidential couple but also to others, and on that basis judged it difficult to see the couple as having obtained property gains equivalent to the polling expense.
The former president's side indicated immediately after the sentencing that it would appeal. Yoon's defense team said, "In the first lady's case, both the first and second trials resulted in acquittals, so it is hard to understand how there can be some guilty findings in a case with exactly the same facts," adding, "We will appeal and contest it." After the verdict, the former president was quoted as telling his defense team, "I'm fine, but I worry about the future of our judiciary."
The special counsel team said, "It is very meaningful that a ruling has finally been handed down in this case that aligns with the public's sense of justice." It added, "It is true we had many concerns because an acquittal was rendered in the case on the same charges, but it seems the court carefully reviewed various arguments and evidence and made a wise judgment."
The Supreme Court is set to deliver the final ruling in the first lady's case on the 16th. If the Supreme Court upholds the acquittal in the first lady's case, how to reconcile the legal assessment of the former president's first-trial ruling with the first lady's case will remain a follow-up issue.