Former Deputy Minister of Justice Lee Yong-gu, sentenced to suspended prison term for assaulting reporter and instructing evidence destruction

All Charges in the Indictment Found Guilty

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] Former Deputy Minister of Justice Lee Yong-gu, who was prosecuted for assaulting a taxi driver while intoxicated, was sentenced to a suspended prison term in the first trial.

On the afternoon of the 25th, the Criminal Division 32-2 of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judges Cho Seung-woo, Bang Yoon-seop, Kim Hyun-soon) sentenced former Deputy Minister Lee, who was charged with assaulting a driver under the Act on Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes and instructing evidence destruction, to six months in prison with a two-year suspension.

The court stated, "Stopping the taxi briefly to confirm whether they had arrived at the destination, the defendant assaulted the driver while intoxicated, which could have caused a traffic accident and posed a significant risk of serious harm to the life, body, or property of third parties, so the culpability is not light." The court also criticized, "Moreover, the defendant aggravated the severity of the crime by instructing evidence destruction to avoid or reduce criminal punishment in this case, thereby endangering the criminal justice process."

The court found all charges, including instructing evidence destruction, guilty. It rejected the defense’s claim that former Deputy Minister Lee only tried to prevent the dissemination of videos and media coverage while being considered as a candidate for the head of the High-ranking Officials’ Crime Investigation Office. The court pointed out, "As a legal expert, if the defendant intended to ask the victim for such a purpose, he could have sufficiently prepared a way to achieve that goal while avoiding the risk of instructing evidence destruction."

However, a former Seocho Police Station officer A, who was jointly prosecuted for special dereliction of duty and other charges after closing the investigation despite reviewing the black box footage following the incident, was acquitted. The court stated, "There is no evidence submitted by the prosecution that A single-handedly concealed video evidence for defendant Lee Yong-gu and decided to downplay the crime as assault under criminal law while handling the case." Although A handled necessary tasks imperfectly and negligently at several stages, the court concluded that it was not an organized or planned criminal act.

In the previous closing arguments, the prosecution requested the court to sentence former Deputy Minister Lee to one year in prison and sought one year and six months for officer A. Meanwhile, former Deputy Minister Lee admitted to assaulting the taxi driver but appealed for consideration of his intoxicated and mentally impaired state at the time. However, he claimed innocence regarding the charge of instructing evidence destruction.

Earlier, former Deputy Minister Lee was prosecuted for assaulting a taxi driver near his home in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on the night of November 6, 2020, by grabbing and pushing the driver who tried to wake him up while he was intoxicated. He was also charged with instructing evidence destruction for requesting the taxi driver to delete the black box video footage showing the assault immediately after the incident.

This case involved assaulting a driver while driving, but controversy arose because the police did not apply the charge of assaulting a driver under the Act on Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes. The taxi driver expressed that he did not want prosecution and accepted a settlement of 10 million won, and the police applied the assault charge under criminal law, which is a quasi-offense requiring the victim’s consent, leading to the case being closed as an internal investigation. Assault under criminal law is a 'quasi-offense' that cannot be prosecuted without the victim’s consent.

After the appointment to the deputy minister position at the end of 2020, a reinvestigation began following a complaint filed by civic groups, raising suspicions that the police tried to cover up the case despite reviewing part of the black box footage. Former Deputy Minister Lee stepped down from his position after the reinvestigation started.

The prosecution indicted former Deputy Minister Kim without detention on charges of assaulting a driver under the Act on Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes, not assault under criminal law.

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