Top math tutor Hyun Woo-jin acquitted in exam question trading case

Court rules transactions were private deals, not illegal solicitation

Two teachers and textbook firm head also cleared

Hyun Woo-jin, a top-ranked private tutoring instructor facing charges of illegally trading college entrance exam questions with active teachers, arrives at Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul, for the first hearing on April 24. [Yonhap]

Hyun Woo-jin, a prominent mathematics instructor who stood trial on charges of paying active teachers hundreds of millions of won for college entrance exam questions, was acquitted Wednesday in a first-instance ruling.

Seoul Central District Court Judge Lee Jae-wook acquitted Hyun of violating the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, legal sources said Wednesday.

Two active teachers who received money from Hyun in exchange for the questions, and the head of a textbook development company identified only as A, were also acquitted.

"The money exchanged by the defendants constitutes a private transaction and does not fall under the category of prohibited payments under the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act," the court said. "None of the charges in this case amount to a crime."

Hyun was indicted in December last year on charges of conspiring with A to pay two active teachers a total of 346 million won ($250,000) between March 2020 and May 2023 in exchange for mathematics questions for college entrance exam preparation. He also faces a separate charge of wiring 75 million won to a bank account held in the name of another active teacher's spouse.

The Improper Solicitation and Graft Act prohibits civil servants and private school teachers from receiving more than 1 million won from a single person per transaction, or more than 3 million won in a single fiscal year.

Prosecutors had asked the court last month to sentence Hyun and the other defendants to one year in prison each. "Selling exam questions for years and receiving hundreds of millions of won fundamentally undermines public trust in education and cannot be justified in any way," prosecutors said.

Hyun's defense maintained throughout the trial that he had entered into legitimate contracts and paid fair compensation to secure questions for inclusion in textbooks. "Providing students with high-quality problems is a natural duty for a mathematics instructor and textbook author," his lawyer said.

jshan@heraldcorp.com