Yoo Seung-min referred over allegations surrounding daughter’s appointment as professor: “A political investigation to humiliate me ... trying to pin a nonexistent crime on me”

[Financial News] Former People Power Party lawmaker Yoo Seung-min pushed back against being referred to the Prosecution Office over allegations that his daughter, Yoo Dam, a professor in the Department of Trade at Incheon National University, received preferential treatment in her appointment, saying, “The hiring process was fair and legitimate” and “I have never committed the crime of obstruction of business.”
In a statement on the 16th, Yoo said, “I want to make it clear that I have never committed the crime of obstruction of business in connection with the hiring of my daughter, Yoo Dam, as a full-time faculty member in the Department of Trade at Incheon National University.”
He continued, “This case involves the police and the Board of Audit and Inspection subjecting dozens of Incheon National University officials to exhaustive investigations over the past year,” and claimed, “The professors who directly handled the hiring review and the university would have testified truthfully to all the facts about the fairness of the process.”
He also emphasized, “The police and the Board of Audit and Inspection are determined to manufacture a crime that does not exist and pin it on me,” adding, “The police investigation and the Board of Audit and Inspection’s audit are nothing but politically motivated investigations and audits intended to humiliate and persecute me.”
Yoo said that after the Democratic Party raised allegations of self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, and salami slicing in research papers during last year’s National Assembly audit, he had the allegations investigated, but Korea University’s Research Ethics Committee announced that its findings showed no problems. He added, “I will uncover the truth during the prosecution and trial proceedings ahead and make sure to prove my innocence.”
Finally, Yoo said, “I strongly warn the Lee Jae-myung administration: No matter how much you suppress political opponents by making the police lackeys of public-security rule, you cannot fabricate crimes that do not exist.” He added, “Political investigations will come back like a boomerang and inevitably become their own comeuppance.”
The Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency’s Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Investigation Unit said that day that it had registered four people, including Yoo and Incheon National University President Lee In-jae, as suspects without detention on suspicion of obstruction of business and referred them to the Prosecution Office. Yoo and the others are suspected of interfering with the university’s hiring process when Professor Yoo was appointed to the Department of Trade in Incheon National University’s College of Global Economics and Commerce for the second semester of last year.
[email protected] Kim Hee-seon Reporter