Police Decide Not to Prosecute Kim Eun-hye, Chief of Public Relations, Over Alleged Asset Underreporting

Eunhye Kim, Chief of Public Relations Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The police have decided not to prosecute Kim Eun-hye, the presidential office's chief spokesperson, who was accused of underreporting assets during the June 1 local elections.

The Bundang Police Station in Gyeonggi Province announced on the 18th that it concluded the case filed by the Democratic Party of Korea against Chief Kim for violating the Public Official Election Act with a decision of 'no charges' and decided not to prosecute. According to the police, Chief Kim was accused of underreporting approximately 1.6 billion KRW worth of assets, including her spouse's building and securities, during the local election in which she ran for governor of Gyeonggi Province. She was also accused of making statements at the gubernatorial candidate debate hosted by the Gyeonggi Province Election Broadcasting Debate Committee that differed from the shared ownership of her spouse's building as listed in the asset declaration form.

The case was initially received by the Seongnam Branch of the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office following a complaint from the Democratic Party's Gyeonggi Provincial Party and an investigation request from the Election Commission, and was later transferred to the Bundang Police Station, the jurisdictional police station. After handing over the investigation of the 'Seongnam FC sponsorship fund suspicion' case to the higher authority, the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency, Bundang Police Station reviewed the case. The police originally planned to summon Chief Kim for questioning around the end of August but conducted the summons investigation on the 5th of this month, about two months later. The case was then closed two weeks after the summons investigation.

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