"Bribery in the form of severance pay? Up to 10 years imprisonment for receiving even 100 million won"

Attorney Kim Nam-geun KBS Radio Interview
"Gwak Sang-do's 5 Billion Won Acquittal? Not Consistent"
Ordinary Person Receiving Severance Pay as Bribe Faces Heavy Sentence

[Asia Economy Reporter Ryu Jeong-min] "If you tell your son to receive it as retirement pay instead of a bribe, even if it's only 100 million won, it's a crime punishable by more than 10 years in prison or life imprisonment. So if you do that recklessly, you can be sentenced to a heavy punishment."

Attorney Kim Nam-geun appeared on KBS Radio's 'Choi Kyung-young's Strongest Current Affairs' on the 10th and warned that generalizing the case of former lawmaker Kwak Sang-do, who was acquitted in the controversy over the 5 billion won retirement pay, would be a big problem. He said that if an ordinary person did such an act, even receiving 100 million won could lead to a heavy sentence of more than 10 years or life imprisonment.

Attorney Kim explained, "Even from the perspective of common sense among ordinary citizens, it is hard to believe that 5 billion won was given as an employee's performance bonus, so it can be seen as an unreasonable judgment."

Former People Power Party lawmaker Kwak Sang-do, who is accused of receiving bribes as severance pay for his son from the Daejang-dong group, is attending the first trial sentencing hearing related to violations of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul on the 8th. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

Attorney Kim focused on the possibility that former lawmaker Kwak Sang-do's acquittal regarding his son's 5 billion won retirement pay was due to a lenient investigation by the prosecution. Kwak is a former prosecutor who served as head of the Special 3rd Division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office and head of the Daegu Western District Prosecutors' Office, and was the senior secretary for civil affairs at the Blue House during the Park Geun-hye administration.

Attorney Kim explained, "The investigation was delayed and started late, and they did not properly investigate the son. Also, the charges usually need to be detailed: if there is a problem, they should prosecute for simple bribery as a primary charge and third-party bribery as a preparatory charge. However, since they did not even prepare a third-party bribery charge, the court did not consider that part."

Attorney Kim pointed out, "If the court expresses that it would be difficult to convict on simple bribery charges, the prosecution would amend the indictment to add third-party bribery as a preparatory charge or take similar steps, but it seems that such a process did not occur."

Regarding the so-called 'Jung Young-hak recordings,' Attorney Kim said, "The conversations in the recordings suggest that they said there is no profit to share because they spent a lot on bribes or such costs. So the court probably would not place much trust in that evidence. More concrete evidence is needed; it would be difficult to indict or convict based solely on the recordings."

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