Court Sentences Optimus CEO Kim Jaehyun to 40 Years in Prison in Appeal Trial

Optimus Asset Management office, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] Kim Jae-hyun, CEO of Optimus Asset Management (Optimus), who was indicted on charges of fund fraud involving over 1 trillion won, was sentenced to 40 years in prison in the appellate trial. This sentence is significantly harsher than the 25 years handed down in the first trial. Other Optimus officials indicted alongside him also received substantially increased sentences in the appellate trial.

The Criminal Division 5 of the Seoul High Court (Presiding Judges Yoon Kang-yeol, Park Jae-young, Kim Sang-chul) overturned the first trial's sentence of 25 years imprisonment for Kim, who was charged with fraud under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, and sentenced him to 40 years in prison on the 18th. The fine of 500 million won and the confiscation amount of 75.175 billion won were maintained as in the first trial.

The court sentenced Lee Dong-yeol (47), the second-largest shareholder of Optimus, to 20 years in prison and a fine of 500 million won, and Director Yoon Seok-ho (45) to 15 years in prison and a fine of 300 million won. In the first trial, Lee and Yoon were sentenced to 8 years in prison with a 300 million won fine and a 200 million won fine, respectively. The confiscation order of 5.175 billion won against Lee was upheld as in the first trial.

Kim and others were indicted on charges of deceiving investors by claiming to invest in public institution accounts receivable from April 2018 to June last year, raising over 1 trillion won, then engaging in acquiring non-performing bonds and circular fund transactions.

The first trial court recognized 1.3194 trillion won of the investment funds raised by Optimus as the amount involved in the fraud.

Meanwhile, Kim was also indicted on charges of embezzlement under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes for conspiring with former Haeduck Powerway CEO Park to withdraw 5 billion won of paid-in capital from Hwaseong Industrial, the largest shareholder of Haeduck Powerway, and arbitrarily using it for Optimus fund redemptions. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison by the court in December last year.

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