Court Sentences ‘Baekhyeon-dong Lobbyist’ Kim In-seop to 5 Years in Prison... Sentenced in Court (Comprehensive)

Court Revokes Bail and Re-arrests
First Guilty Verdict in Baekhyun-dong Allegations

Kim In-seop, former CEO of Korea Housing Technology, who was indicted as a 'lobbyist for official permissions' related to the Baekhyeon-dong development project in Seongnam City, was sentenced to prison in the first trial. This is the first court ruling on the Baekhyeon-dong allegations case, in which Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, is also implicated and indicted.

Kim In-seop, former CEO of Korea Housing Technology, who was identified as the 'lobbyist for official approval' in the Baekhyun-dong development favoritism suspicion, is attending the first trial sentencing hearing held on the 13th at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

The Seoul Central District Court Criminal Division 27 (Presiding Judge Kim Ok-gon) sentenced former CEO Kim, who was charged with bribery under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes, to five years in prison and ordered the confiscation of approximately 6.3 billion KRW. The court revoked his bail, citing "risk of flight," and detained Kim in court.

Kim is accused of receiving 7.7 billion KRW from Asia Developer Chairman Jung Ba-ul, a real estate development company, as a bribe for facilitating permits for the Baekhyeon-dong development project from September 2015 to March this year. He is also accused of obtaining business rights to a lunchbox restaurant worth about 50 million KRW. Kim is known to have served as the campaign committee chairman around 2006 when Lee was a candidate for Seongnam mayor. Previously, the prosecution's arrest warrant for Kim's associate, Mr. Kim, who was charged with bribery under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes, stated that Mr. Kim, along with former CEO Kim, who had close ties with Lee and former Democratic Party political coordination chief Jeong Jin-sang, promised to receive 7 billion KRW from Chairman Jung in exchange for facilitating permits related to the Baekhyeon-dong development project and actually received 3.5 billion KRW.

The prosecution classifies this case as a "power-based local corruption case," in which Lee, following Kim's request, excluded Seongnam Urban Development Corporation from the Baekhyeon-dong apartment development project between April 2014 and March 2018 and granted exclusive business rights to a private operator, causing the corporation a loss of about 20 billion KRW. In October last year, the prosecution indicted Lee and former chief Jeong without detention on charges of breach of trust under the Specific Economic Crimes Act, judging that they caused damage to the corporation.

The court first stated, "The defendant received a request from Chairman Jung to 'ask Seongnam city officials' regarding changes in land use zones, expansion of residential land ratios, and exclusion of Seongnam Urban Development Corporation from the project, and conveyed the intention to handle these matters according to the wishes of himself or Chairman Jung," and judged that "this constitutes 'mediation' rather than merely presenting reasonable opinions."

Furthermore, the court ruled, "There is no substantial partnership relationship between the defendant and Chairman Jung, and the defendant's role in this project was solely to mediate and request favors from Seongnam city officials," and "there is no other reason for the defendant to receive such a large sum from Chairman Jung other than as payment for the request."

The court explained the sentencing rationale, stating, "The defendant, without any particular expertise or know-how related to this project, used only his connections with local politicians and Seongnam city officials to actively mediate various permits multiple times, and received an amount exceeding 7 billion KRW, which is difficult to justify by common sense, thus bearing very heavy criminal responsibility."

However, the court found it difficult to definitively conclude that 250 million KRW of the amount received from Chairman Jung was a bribe, considering that the defendant had written an IOU. The court judged only 7.45 billion KRW, excluding 250 million KRW of the 7.7 billion KRW that the prosecution charged Kim with receiving from private operators, as guilty.

On this day, the court did not separately mention the conspiracy relationship between Lee and Kim or the possibility of Lee's breach of trust charges. The court stated, "As long as the defendant received money or benefits as a bribe, the crime of bribery is established regardless of whether the mediation was improper, whether the land use zone changes in Seongnam were illegal, or whether the mediation caused the land use zone changes in Seongnam."

Kim's defense attorney said after the verdict, "We will decide whether to appeal after reviewing the judgment."

Meanwhile, the defense team of former chief Jeong issued a statement on the same day, saying, "This ruling was made without guaranteeing former chief Jeong's right to participate and defense," and reiterated, "Former chief Jeong neither received any request related to the Baekhyeon-dong project from Kim In-seop nor transmitted any such request to a third party."

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