Supreme Court Confirms 3-Year Prison Sentence for Gangnam English Academy Instructor Selling SAT Test Papers and Answer Sheets

An English academy instructor who stole SAT exam questions and sold them to students and parents was sentenced to prison.

On the 15th, according to the legal community, the Supreme Court's First Division (Presiding Justice Kim Seon-su) upheld the original court ruling that sentenced Song Mo to three years in prison on charges of obstruction of business.

Supreme Court, Seocho-dong, Seoul.

The court stated the reason for dismissing Song's appeal was that "there was no error in the original court's judgment in terms of failing to conduct necessary hearings, violating the limits of free evaluation of evidence contrary to logic and experience, or misapplying the law regarding the establishment of obstruction of business, burden of proof, specification of charges, and the principle of in dubio pro reo."

Song, who worked as an English instructor at an academy located in Gangnam, Seoul, was prosecuted on charges of conspiring with foreign language high school teachers, brokers, and others from April 2014 to November 2019 to steal SAT exam papers and sell them to students and parents, thereby obstructing the exam management duties of the test administrator.

The group exploited the fact that the SAT exam is administered several hours later in some overseas regions than in Korea due to time differences. The SAT is held seven times a year in the United States and four to five times a year in other countries, all on the same day at 9 a.m. local time worldwide. For example, the exam administered in Europe starts on average about eight hours later than the exam held in Korea on the same day.

For instance, on December 1, 2018, when they stole the exam papers, the time the test questions were saved on a computer in Korea was 10:55 a.m., and the answer sheets were saved at 11:06 a.m. At that time, the European Standard Time was 2:55 a.m. on December 1, New York Standard Time was 9:55 p.m. on November 30, and Hawaii Standard Time was 3:55 p.m. on November 30.

Their criminal method was quite organized.

First, a foreign language high school teacher who entered as a test supervisor on the day of the exam in Korea distributed the exam papers, then took the remaining spare exam papers to the office, photographed them with a mobile phone, and uploaded them to a web hard drive pre-informed by a broker. The broker then emailed the exam papers to Song.

Song had other instructors he had recruited in advance solve the exam papers, created answer sheets, and sent them along with the exam papers via email to students and parents taking the SAT overseas, such as in Europe.

They also purchased exam papers leaked in advance from a Chinese broker who sold exam papers shipped worldwide from the United States three weeks before the exam and resold them domestically. By selling exam papers and answer sheets in this way, they received from as little as 8 million won to as much as 65 million won, with confirmed criminal proceeds amounting to about 1.1 billion won.

The first trial court recognized guilt for the charges except for some where evidence was insufficient and sentenced Song to four years in prison.

During the trial, Song claimed innocence, arguing that for some exams included in the charges, the exam papers he sold differed from the actual exam questions, or that the scores of students who purchased the exam papers actually dropped.

However, the court rejected Song's claims by citing Supreme Court precedents, stating, "The crime of obstruction of business does not require that the obstruction actually occurs; it is sufficient that there is a risk of causing the obstruction."

The second trial court acquitted some charges that the first trial court had found guilty due to insufficient evidence from the prosecution and reduced the sentence to three years in prison.

The court pointed out, "The defendant, an academy instructor for the SAT exam, participated in the crime by receiving money from an illegal exam paper leak broker and delivering the leaked exam papers to his academy students and their parents, playing an important role in the overall crime. The crimes were committed multiple times over a long period, substantial economic gains were obtained, the trust of general test takers who take the exam fairly was damaged, and it fosters a wrong social atmosphere that values only achieving good scores through cheating. Therefore, the nature of the crime is very serious."

The Supreme Court also found no problem with the second trial court's judgment.

Meanwhile, the foreign language high school teacher and the broker who were tried together with Song were sentenced to three years and two years and six months in prison, respectively.

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