Lim Jung-hyuk, 69, a lawyer and former high-ranking prosecutor, has been definitively acquitted of charges that he received money in exchange for promising to derail an investigation into the Baekhyeon-dong development corruption case.
According to legal sources on Wednesday, the Second Division of the Supreme Court, with Justice Chun Dae-yeop as presiding judge, upheld a lower court ruling that acquitted Lim of charges of violating the Attorney-at-Law Act.
Lim was indicted on charges of receiving 100 million won ($72,000) into his personal account from Chairman Chung in June 2023, allegedly as funds for lobbying and making requests to public officials in connection with the Baekhyeon-dong development corruption investigation. Prosecutors alleged that Lim demanded 1 billion won, claiming he would derail the investigation by lobbying senior prosecution officials, and pocketed 100 million won of that amount as a retainer.
The first-instance court sentenced Lim, a former senior prosecutor, to two years in prison, suspended for three years, and ordered forfeiture of 100 million won. The first-instance court explained that "the defendant's act of personally meeting with leadership at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office to request a non-detention investigation of Chung Ba-ul constitutes inappropriate private contact exercising influence as a former-prosecutor lawyer."
However, the appellate court handed down a not-guilty verdict. The appellate court did not accept the credibility of testimony from Lee Dong-gyu, former chairman of KH Real Estate Development, which had served as the key basis for the first-instance guilty ruling. Lee had testified that he had commissioned Lim to make the request as an agent for Chung Ba-ul, chairman of Asia Developer and a private developer of the Baekhyeon-dong project, but the court judged that his testimony was inconsistent and of questionable credibility.
The Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling. The Supreme Court explained that "the lower court's judgment did not violate the rules of logic and experience, exceed the limits of the principle of free evaluation of evidence, or misunderstand the legal principles regarding the lawful scope of an attorney's duties."
