Appeal Dismissed for Vice Chairman of Autonomous Committee Who Defamed Gwangju Nam-gu Council Member

The vice chairman of the Residents' Autonomy Committee, who spread false information about a prospective candidate for the basic council member, was sentenced to a fine again in the appellate court.

According to the legal community on the 29th, the Gwangju High Court Criminal Division 1 (Presiding Judge Park Hye-seon) dismissed the appeal of A (73), who was indicted for violating the Public Official Election Act and other charges and was sentenced to a fine of 5 million won in the first trial.

A appealed on the grounds of factual misunderstanding, legal error, and unfair sentencing, but none were accepted.

A is currently serving as the vice chairman of the Autonomy Committee in Nam-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City.

A was prosecuted for posting false information about Oh Young-soon, a council member of Nam-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City, and her husband on the Blue House National Petition bulletin board on March 25 last year.

Before the 8th nationwide simultaneous local elections, A claimed on the bulletin board that "Council member Oh abused her power to help her husband's cooperative corporation win a local government public contest project."

However, it was revealed that Council member Oh's husband was not the operator of the cooperative corporation but an auditor, and that they had not even applied for the public contest project.

A also damaged the reputation of Council member Oh and her husband by sharing the link to the National Petition post in a KakaoTalk group chat with dozens of people.

The court stated, "The sentence imposed by the original court is considered to be within a reasonable range of discretion and is not deemed excessively heavy or unfair."

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