The Supreme Court has postponed the appellate ruling in the case involving First Lady Kim Keon-hee, including the Deutsch Motors stock manipulation charges, from the 16th to the 24th of this month. The move appears to reflect the court's acceptance of a request by the special counsel team led by Min Joong-ki to jointly review the first-instance ruling that convicted former President Yoon Suk-yeol, an accomplice, in relation to charges of accepting opinion polls from Myung Tae-kyun.
The Supreme Court's Second Division, with Justice Park Young-jae as the presiding judge, on the 15th delayed to 2 p.m. on the 24th of this month the appellate ruling on Kim's charges of violating the Capital Markets Act, the Political Funds Act, and brokerage bribery under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes. The ruling had originally been scheduled for 10:15 a.m. on the 16th.
Earlier, the Kim Keon-hee special counsel team (Special Counsel Min Joong-ki) had requested the postponement of Kim's Supreme Court ruling. On the 13th of this month, the special counsel team submitted an additional written opinion reflecting the contents of the ruling, taking into account that former President Yoon Suk-yeol—who had been indicted on charges of receiving free opinion polls from political broker Myung Tae-kyun—was found guilty in the first instance.
Yoon and Kim were indicted and tried separately on charges of receiving 58 free opinion polls worth a total of 270 million won from political broker Myung Tae-kyun between June 2021 and March 2022.
Kim had been found not guilty of the charge in the first and second instances and was awaiting the Supreme Court's judgment. The first and second instance courts held that, since Myung provided opinion polls not only to Yoon and his wife but also to others, the couple could not be seen as having gained financial benefit equivalent to the cost of the opinion polls.
However, on the 13th, the first-instance court in Yoon's case, who had been indicted on the same charge, recognized the "free opinion polls" as guilty, sentencing him to two years in prison and ordering the forfeiture of 13,963,600 won. The first-instance court presented a legal interpretation diametrically opposed to that in Kim's first and second instances, which had held that Kim did not qualify as a "person engaged in political activity" under the Political Funds Act. The court ruled that there was an "implicit agreement" on the free provision among Kim, Yoon, and Myung, and that Kim bears responsibility as a co-principal.
In that trial, however, in addition to the Political Funds Act violation charge, Kim was found guilty of some charges of participating in the Deutsch Motors stock manipulation and of receiving money and valuables from the Unification Church, and was sentenced to four years in prison and a fine of 50 million won in the second instance.
