Yoo Dong-gyu: "Attorney Choi Jae-kyung Introduced to 'Legal Room' for Lee's Lawsuit Response"

Former Seongnam Urban Development Corporation Director Yoo Dong-gyu testified in court that there was a Telegram 'Legal Room' (a chat room involving the legal team) to respond to lawsuits during Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, when he was governor of Gyeonggi Province.

Former Director Yoo Dong-gyu [Image source=Yonhap News]

Yoo appeared as a witness on the 7th at the Seoul Central District Court Criminal Division 33 (Presiding Judge Kim Dong-hyun) for the trial of Lee on charges including breach of trust and bribery, revealing this information.

Yoo mentioned the Legal Room in response to prosecutors' questions regarding the charge of evidence destruction instruction against former Chief of Political Coordination at the Representative Office Jeong Jin-sang in September 2021, which was consolidated with Lee’s trial. Yoo claimed that the Legal Room included a lawyer introduced to Lee by former Blue House Senior Secretary for Civil Affairs Choi Jae-kyung, who was mentioned in the so-called '50 Billion Club' and 'False Transcript' cases.

Yoo had previously testified in May that he was introduced to former Secretary Choi by Kim Man-bae, the major shareholder of Hwacheon Daeyu Asset Management, a private operator in the Daejang-dong development project.

Meanwhile, prosecutors also questioned Yoo on the indictment charge that Jeong instructed Yoo to throw his mobile phone out the window as a raid was imminent on September 29, 2021. When prosecutors asked, "Did you say, 'I will take full responsibility. I will cover everything,' while discussing countermeasures with Jeong around the time of the raid?" Yoo replied, "At that time, I was actually thinking about dying."

He added, "The people I had to protect the most then were Lee Jae-myung and Jeong Jin-sang," and said, "I told the (presidential) campaign to pretend not to know anything at all and to leave everything to me."

At the trial that day, Yoo met face-to-face with Lee for the first time in five months since the June 17 hearing at the same court’s Criminal Division 34 (Presiding Judge Kang Kyu-tae) on charges of violating the Public Official Election Act. However, since the questioning was related to Jeong, the two did not directly exchange words.

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