Yoon indicted without detention over failure to report wife's luxury bag

Prosecutors filed additional charges against former President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday, alleging he failed to report that his wife, Kim Keon Hee, had received a luxury handbag — a disclosure required under anti-graft law.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office Anti-Corruption Investigation Unit 3 indicted Yoon without detention on charges of violating the Act on the Prohibition of Improper Solicitation and Provision of Money and Valuables, commonly known as the Kim Young-ran Act.

According to prosecutors, Yoon was aware that Kim had received a Dior handbag from Pastor Choi Jae-young but failed to fulfill his legal obligation to report the gift.

Kim had earlier received a Chanel cosmetics set from Pastor Choi in June 2022 and the Dior bag in September of the same year. Prosecutors had initially declined to indict Kim in October 2024, ruling that the bag had no connection to presidential duties.

A special prosecutor's team investigating Kim Keon Hee, led by Special Prosecutor Min Joong-ki, reopened the case but was unable to conclude it within its mandate. A special investigative unit under the Korean National Police Agency, which took over the case, decided in June not to refer Kim on bribery charges but forwarded Yoon to prosecutors on suspicion of violating the Kim Young-ran Act.

Prosecutors said they weighed Pastor Choi's courtroom testimony and a separate court's finding — in Kim's case involving allegations of brokerage corruption — that a connection to official duties existed. On that basis, they concluded that Kim's receipt of the Dior bag met the threshold for duty-related gifts under the Kim Young-ran Act, and that Yoon had been aware of this yet failed to report it.

Prosecutors separately declined to indict Yoon over statements he made during the presidential campaign denying that Kim had been involved in stock price manipulation. The Central District Prosecutors' Office Public Investigation Unit 2 dropped the Public Official Election Act charge of spreading false information, finding insufficient grounds for the allegation.

Yoon had faced allegations that, between October 2021 and February 2022 — while he was a presidential candidate — he publicly stated that Kim had no involvement in allegations of share price manipulation at Deutsch Motors, with the intent of winning the election.

Police, who received the case from the Kim Keon Hee special prosecutor's team, forwarded it to prosecutors in July after concluding the charges were substantiated. Prosecutors decided not to indict, noting that Yoon's statements primarily concerned Deutsch Motors share transactions from January through May 2010 — a period distinct from the transactions for which Kim was convicted of violating the Capital Markets Act on appeal in October 2010.

Prosecutors also found that most of the transactions occurred before Yoon and Kim's marriage, and that evidence was insufficient to show Yoon had direct knowledge of the relevant facts or had reviewed related materials. The January–May 2010 Deutsch Motors share transactions fall outside the scope of the stock manipulation charges brought by the Kim Keon Hee special prosecutor.