‘Defamation of Cho Kuk and False Accusation of Dodomom’ Kang Yong-seok, Guilty in All Appeals

Kang Yong-seok, a lawyer who was prosecuted for spreading false information that Cho Kuk, the leader of the Cho Kuk Innovation Party, was colluding with financial companies, was sentenced to a fine again in the second trial.

Attorney Kang Yong-seok. [Photo by Yonhap News]

On the morning of the 17th, the 4-1 Criminal Appeal Division of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judges Yang Ji-jung, Eom Cheol, Lee Hoon-jae) sentenced Kang, who was indicted for violating the Information and Communications Network Act (defamation), to a fine of 5 million won, the same as in the first trial.

The court stated, “The defendant merely received a simple email tip and did not make thorough efforts to verify the facts,” and added, “It is difficult to find any factual error or legal misinterpretation in the original judgment.”

In 2019, Kang raised suspicions of collusion between politics and business on his YouTube channel, claiming that Kim Kyung-rok, a private banker at Korea Investment & Securities and asset manager for Cho and his spouse, was a relative of the Korea Investment & Securities owner family. In response, Korea Investment & Securities stated, “Mr. Kim is unrelated to the owner family,” and filed a lawsuit against Kang.

On this day, the court also sentenced Kang to 6 months in prison with a 2-year probation in the appeal trial for the charge of instigating false accusation, the same as in the first trial.

The court ruled, “Despite having a prior record of punishment for the same type of crime as a lawyer, the defendant instigated false accusations again without any particular sense of guilt, which shows a very bad nature of the crime.”

Kang is accused of urging Kim Mina, known as the famous blogger ‘Dodommam,’ in 2015 to falsely accuse Mr. A, a head of a certain securities company, of rape causing injury.

In court, Kim testified that Kang urged her to file a false accusation for the purpose of a settlement payment and that she was never raped or sexually assaulted by Mr. A.

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