Supreme Court Confirms Suspended Sentence for Kim Kyung-rok PB in 'Evidence Concealment' Case at Request of Jeong Gyeong-sim

On December 23 last year, Jung Kyung-shim, wife of former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk, who was indicted on charges of admission fraud and private equity fund suspicions, is attending the first trial sentencing hearing at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] Kim Kyung-rok (39), the asset manager of Professor Jung Kyung-shim (57, currently incarcerated) of Dongyang University and wife of former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk, who was indicted on charges of concealing evidence such as computer hard disks at the request of Professor Jung, has had his suspended prison sentence finalized.

On the 8th, the Supreme Court's First Division (Presiding Justice No Tae-ak) dismissed Kim's appeal in the final trial for the charge of evidence concealment and upheld the lower court's ruling sentencing him to 8 months in prison with a 2-year suspension.

The court stated, "The crime of evidence concealment was established at the point when the defendant received hard disks from Jung Kyung-shim’s residence and stored them in the passenger car he brought. Furthermore, the infringement on the protected legal interest of the evidence concealment crime ended when the three hard disks and the computer main body hidden in the defendant’s car and gym locker were finally submitted to the investigative authorities. Therefore, there is no error in the legal reasoning regarding the establishment of the evidence concealment crime and the concept of a comprehensive single crime in the lower court’s guilty verdict."

Kim, who worked as a Private Banker (PB) at Korea Investment & Securities managing investment assets entrusted by clients, had been managing Professor Jung’s assets since 2014 and was known to have maintained close relations with the professor, her husband, and their family.

After former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk was nominated on August 9, 2019, allegations of admission fraud involving their children, private equity fund investment fraud, and corruption related to Woongdong Academy surfaced. On August 27 of the same year, the prosecution conducted raids on related locations including Pusan National University, the office of Korink Private Equity (Korink PE), and Woongdong Academy.

According to the prosecution’s charges, on August 28, 2019, the day after the raids, Kim received a call from Professor Jung and visited her home, where she asked him to "replace the computer hard disks in preparation for the search and seizure."

Subsequently, Kim purchased two hard disks at an electronics market near Nambu Terminal using a credit card provided by Professor Jung and replaced the hard disks of two computers in the study at her residence.

On August 31, Kim received another call from Professor Jung asking him to "remove the hard disks from the Dongyang University professor’s office and bring them to Seoul to review." Kim then went to Professor Jung’s home, received three hard disks?one of the two he had previously removed and two from the computer installed in Professor Jung’s son’s computer?and stored them in a Cadillac passenger car registered under his girlfriend’s name.

Near midnight on the same day, Kim and Professor Jung went to the professor’s research office at Dongyang University in Yeongju, Gyeongbuk Province, where they attempted to replace the hard disk of the computer used by the professor. However, since the size of the prepared hard disk did not fit and the building’s entrance was about to close, Professor Jung instructed Kim to "take the entire computer main body to Yongsan and replace the hard disk there," so Kim took the whole computer main body with him.

Later, on September 9, 2019, ahead of a prosecution investigation, Kim hid the three hard disks received from Professor Jung in a personal locker at the gym he attended. Three days later, on September 11, after the prosecution discovered photos of a disassembled PC on his mobile phone and questioned him, Kim voluntarily submitted the hard disks. The computer main body from the Dongyang University professor’s office, which had been stored in his car, was returned to Professor Jung on September 3 of the same year.

In the first trial, Kim was sentenced to 8 months in prison with a 2-year suspension.

At that time, the court stated, "Considering that key evidence related to the criminal case against Jung Kyung-shim was found on the concealed computer main body and hard disks, the defendant’s culpability is not light," but also noted, "The defendant cooperated with the investigation by voluntarily submitting the hidden hard disks, did not delete data stored on the concealed hard disks or computer main body, and has no prior record of similar crimes, which were considered in sentencing."

Kim appealed the first trial on grounds of factual error, legal misinterpretation, and excessive sentencing, while the prosecution appealed citing the sentence as too lenient.

Kim argued that the replacement of the hard disks at Professor Jung’s residence and the concealment of the research office computer main body should be considered separate crimes, and that treating them as a single comprehensive crime with the same intent was incorrect. He also claimed that the subsequent storage acts were non-punishable post-factum acts and thus not subject to punishment, and pointed out that the sentence was too harsh. Conversely, the prosecution argued that the first trial’s sentence was too light and appealed.

However, the second trial court upheld the first trial’s judgment and dismissed both appeals.

The second trial court pointed out, "The three hard disks and one computer main body concealed by the defendant contained numerous important pieces of evidence, including internship certificates of Jung Kyung-shim’s daughter and son, the son’s Dongyang University president’s award, and KakaoTalk conversations related to Korink PE exchanged between Jung Kyung-shim and her younger sibling. Therefore, the defendant’s actions hindered the discovery of substantive truth and obstructed the proper exercise of the state’s criminal justice functions."

However, considering that Kim was an asset manager responsible for Professor Jung, a major client who invested a large sum in the investment company where Kim worked, and that Kim was socially and age-wise at a significant disadvantage, leading him to actively comply with Professor Jung’s instructions or requests, and that there was no evidence of meticulous premeditation or particularly malicious methods in the crime, the court judged that the first trial’s sentencing was neither excessively lenient nor harsh.

Meanwhile, in the first trial verdict delivered last December, Professor Jung was found guilty of instructing evidence destruction related to the private equity fund allegations but was acquitted of instructing (abetting) Kim to conceal evidence. The court reasoned that since Professor Jung directly executed the crime herself, she could not be considered an abettor but should be regarded as a co-principal offender with Kim.

Under criminal law, the crime of evidence concealment is established when one conceals evidence related to another person’s criminal or disciplinary case. In other words, if one conceals evidence related to their own crime directly, they cannot be punished for evidence concealment. However, if one orders another person to conceal evidence related to their own criminal case, they can be punished for abetting evidence concealment.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.