Kim Keon Hee faces Supreme Court ruling on stock manipulation, gift-taking charges

The Supreme Court will next week deliver its first ruling on charges against Kim Keon Hee — wife of former President Yoon Suk Yeol — in cases involving alleged stock price manipulation at Deutsch Motors, gift-taking linked to the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, and the so-called Myung Tae-gyun gate scandal.

The Supreme Court's Second Division, presided over by Justice Park Young-jae, is scheduled to hand down its verdict on Kim's charges of violating the Capital Markets Act and related offenses Thursday at 10:15 a.m. in Courtroom No. 1. The ruling comes days after the Supreme Court's Third Division on Thursday upheld a seven-year prison sentence against Yoon, making Kim's case the first top-court ruling she will face.

The special prosecutor's team investigating Kim (led by Special Prosecutor Min Joong-ki) indicted her on charges of conspiring with former Deutsch Motors Chairman Kwon Oh-su and others between October 2010 and December 2012 to manipulate the company's share price through high-price purchases, fictitious orders and wash trading, allegedly netting 800 million won in illicit gains.

The special prosecutors also charged Kim with conspiring with Buddhist monk Jeon Seong-bae, known as Geonjin Beopsa, between April and July 2022 to accept bribes from the Unification Church — including a Chanel handbag and a Graff diamond necklace — totaling about 80 million won ($53,200) in exchange for acting on the church's requests. In addition, political broker Myung Tae-gyun is alleged to have provided her with presidential election polling services worth a total of 270 million won free of charge.

In January, a first-instance court found Kim partially guilty on charges of brokering bribes, sentencing her to one year and eight months in prison. It also ordered the confiscation of the seized Graff diamond necklace and the forfeiture of 12.81 million won. An appeals court in April handed down a stiffer sentence of four years in prison and a fine of 50 million won. The second court also found Kim guilty on some stock manipulation charges and on bribery charges related to the Chanel handbag — counts the first-instance court had acquitted her of.

Both courts, however, acquitted Kim on charges of violating the Political Funds Act in connection with the so-called Myung Tae-gyun gate affair.

The Supreme Court's Third Division on Thursday upheld the original sentence of seven years in prison for former President Yoon, who had been indicted on charges of obstructing the execution of an arrest warrant by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials.

On the same day, the Supreme Court's Third Division, presided over by Justice Noh Kyung-pil, also upheld guilty verdicts against Buddhist monk Jeon Seong-bae, who was indicted on charges of conspiring with Kim to receive gifts from the Unification Church, and against Yoon Young-ho, a former head of the Unification Church's world headquarters, who was charged with providing those gifts.