Prosecutors additionally indict Yoon Suk Yeol for failing to report Kim Keon Hee’s receipt of a luxury bag

[Financial News] Prosecutors have additionally indicted former President Yoon Suk Yeol for allegedly failing to report that his wife, Kim Keon Hee, received a luxury bag despite knowing about it.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office’s Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 3, headed by Chief Prosecutor Kim Jin-yong, indicted Yoon Suk Yeol without detention on July 17 on charges of violating the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act.
Yoon Suk Yeol is accused of failing to fulfill his reporting obligation under the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act even though he knew that Kim Keon Hee had received a luxury bag connected to official duties.
The case was dismissed in October 2024 on grounds including that Kim Keon Hee’s receipt of the bag was not connected to the president’s official duties. After a reinvestigation by the Kim Keon Hee Special Prosecutor Team, led by Special Counsel Min Joung-kie, police referred the case to prosecutors in June with a recommendation for indictment.
Prosecutors reviewed the case based on testimony in court from Pastor Choi Jae-young, who handed over the bag, as well as the fact that the court hearing Kim Keon Hee’s case for acceptance of bribes in connection with her influence-peddling activities recognized the bag receipt’s connection to official duties in June.
Prosecutors concluded that Kim Keon Hee’s receipt of the luxury bag was connected to official duties under the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, and that Yoon Suk Yeol also knew this but failed to fulfill his reporting obligation.
By contrast, prosecutors dismissed for lack of grounds the allegation that Yoon Suk Yeol violated the Public Official Election Act by making false remarks about Kim Keon Hee’s Deutsche Motors stock trading, including that he had "entrusted stock trading to a specific person, suffered losses, and then cut ties with that person." They also returned police records showing that no charges had been forwarded in the same case.
The case was transferred from the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office to the Kim Keon Hee Special Prosecutor Team in July last year, and the special prosecutor’s team transferred it back to the National Office of Investigation in December of the same year. The National Office of Investigation later referred part of the case in July and handed the remaining records, for which charges had not been forwarded, to prosecutors.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office’s Public Investigation Division 2, headed by Chief Prosecutor Kim Hyeong-won, which handled the case, determined that the remarks in question primarily concerned Deutsche Motors stock transactions from January through May of that year, rather than transactions after October 2010, when Kim Keon Hee was found guilty of stock-price manipulation in an appellate trial for violating the Capital Markets Act.
Prosecutors also explained that most of the transactions took place before Yoon Suk Yeol and Kim Keon Hee were married, making it difficult to regard them as facts Yoon Suk Yeol had directly experienced. They added that there was insufficient evidence that he had reviewed the relevant materials.
Prosecutors further said they had taken into account that Kim Keon Hee’s stock transactions from January through May 2010 were not included in the scope of the charges brought by the Kim Keon Hee Special Prosecutor Team over alleged Deutsche Motors stock-price manipulation.
 
[email protected] Choi Eun-sol Reporter