"Deutsche Motors Investigation" Chief Prosecutor Kim Tae-hoon Says First-Trial Acquittal of Kim Keon Hee on Stock Manipulation Is "Unjust"

[The Financial News] Chief Prosecutor of the Daejeon High Prosecutors' Office Kim Tae-hoon, who led the initial investigation into the "Deutsche Motors stock manipulation allegations," criticized the first-trial acquittal of First Lady Kim Keon Hee on Deutsche Motors stock manipulation charges (violation of the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act) as an "unjust ruling."
Kim Tae-hoon stated, "The first-trial ruling is unjust in light of the intent of prior judgments and the established legal principles on Co-principals and single comprehensive offense."
He noted, "In prior rulings involving Kwon Oh-soo and others, Kim Keon Hee was found to have participated in numerous collusive trades," adding, "Those rulings also recognized that the 2 billion won Kim provided to Blackpearl Invest was used as key funding in Deutsche Motors stock manipulation by Blackpearl Invest."
The Chief Prosecutor of the Daejeon High Prosecutors' Office went on to explain, "The decision not to recognize Kim Keon Hee as one of the Co-principals runs counter to established case law, which holds that Co-principals can be established through functional control over the act based on a division of roles."
He further stated, "Even if a person is a co-offender who participated in only part of a single comprehensive offense, the statute of limitations begins to run from the completion of the overall single comprehensive offense in which they took part, not from the time their own acts ended," and added, "Nevertheless, the court separated the acts from October 2010 to January 2011 and held that the statute of limitations had expired, which contradicts established case law."
A single comprehensive offense is a concept under criminal law in which multiple acts collectively satisfy a single set of statutory elements and are treated as one crime. Co-principals is also a criminal law concept referring to cases where two or more persons jointly commit an offense.
According to Supreme Court of Korea precedents, for Co-principals to be established, there must be a subjective element of "intent to jointly commit the act" and an objective element of "execution of the crime through functional control over the act based on the joint intent." The precedents also hold that merely recognizing another person's criminal conduct and tolerating it without intervening is not enough; rather, the parties must form a unified will to commit a specific criminal act together and use each other's conduct as a means to carry out their own intent.
From 2021 to 2022, Kim Tae-hoon served as the Fourth Deputy Chief Prosecutor at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, where he led the "first investigation team" in the Deutsche Motors stock manipulation case. In the personnel reshuffle for chief prosecutors on the 22nd, he was promoted from the Seoul Southern District Public Prosecutors' Office to Chief Prosecutor of the Daejeon High Prosecutors' Office, and he is also heading the newly launched Joint Police-Prosecution Investigation Headquarters on Political-Religious Collusion this month.
On the 28th, Criminal Division 27 of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judge Woo Inseong of the Seoul Central District Court) sentenced Kim Keon Hee, who had been indicted on charges of violating the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act and the Political Funds Act, as well as on charges of bribery under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes, to one year and eight months in prison and ordered her to forfeit 12,815,000 won.
kyu0705@fnnews.com Kim Dong-gyu Reporter