South Korea's Ex-First Lady Is Arrested on Corruption Charges

New York Times

a day ago

Kim Keon Hee, the wife of Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea's impeached and ousted president, was arrested on ​Tuesday on charges of bribery, stock manipulation and political influence-peddling. She is the first former lady to be put behind bars in the country's history.
Mr. Yoon, who was driven from office after his failed attempt to place South Korea under martial law in December, is already in jail and standing trial on insurrection charges. Four other former presidents of South Korea had been imprisoned before, but this is the first time that both a former president and his wife have been jailed in the country.
When Ms. Kim presented herself for questioning by a special counsel last week, she apologized for 'causing concern to the people' and said she was 'a nobody.' But she has been at the center of a slew of corruption scandals that have plagued her husband's government and undermined his popularity.
Ms. Kim has not directly commented on the accusations against her. But her lawyers have​ denied them, vowing to prove her innocence in court.
While Mr. Yoon was in power, government prosecutors did not press any charges against Ms. Kim. When the opposition-controlled National Assembly passed bills calling for an independent prosecutor to investigate the allegations against his wife, Mr. Yoon called them politically inspired and vetoed them.
President Lee Jae Myung, who replaced Mr. Yoon after the June 3 election, signed just such a bill and appointed a special counsel. The prosecutor grilled Ms. Kim for 11 hours last Wednesday and later asked a court for a warrant to arrest her.
As soon as the warrant was issued late on Tuesday, Ms. Kim was formally arrested. She did not answer questions from journalists when she arrived at the court earlier in the day to attend a hearing on the warrant.
The special counsel accused Ms. Kim of making hundreds of thousands of dollars through stock-price manipulation. Although the alleged crime took place when Mr. Yoon was a prosecutor and before he was elected, the scandal continued to overshadow his presidency. She was also accused of illegally helping a politician get the governing party's nomination in a parliamentary by-election in June 2022.
The charges against her also included receiving a diamond necklace and two Chanel bags as bribes from a senior official of the Unification Church after Mr. Yoon's election. The official, who has since left the church, is also under arrest. The church, formally known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, said it had nothing to do with whatever might have taken place between Ms. Kim and the official.
The special prosecutor's office could file more charges against Ms. Kim, as it was investigating other corruption allegations.
On Tuesday, the office said that a 60 million won ($43,200) Van Cleef pendant that Ms. Kim wore when she accompanied Mr. Yoon on his trip to the NATO summit in 2022 had been a gift from a South Korean businessman. Ms. Kim lied, the office said, when she said the pendant was a cheap fake. It said it was investigating whether the necklace, which was not listed in the Yoons' financial disclosure as required by law, had been a bribe.
Mr. Yoon, a former prosecutor, ​became a national figure by investigating high-profile corruption cases that involved former presidents and business tycoons. But his political career has been dogged by scandals involving his wife and mother-in-law. (In 2023, Ms. Kim's mother, Choi Eun-soon, was sentenced to one year in prison after she was convicted of forging her bank records to make a real-estate deal.)
During Mr. Yoon's election campaign, Ms. Kim apologized for inflating her résumé to promote her art exhibition business. At the time, she promised to be a responsible first lady should her husband be elected.
But spy-cam footage later showed her accepting a $2,200 Dior pouch from a visitor to her private office after Mr. Yoon's inauguration. A reporter also released an audio file of conversations he had had with Ms. Kim before Mr. Yoon's election in which she called her husband 'a fool' who 'farts' and 'can't do anything without me.'
Ms. Kim was considered so influential over her husband's government that South Koreans ​have joked that she was 'V.I.P. No. 1' in ​his government, while ​Mr. Yoon was 'V.I.P. No. 2.'
Mr. Yoon's time in office was also marred by a bitter confrontation with the opposition​, fueled by its demand for investigation​ into his wife's activities. As the pressure mounted last October, he vowed to 'take the stones' on her behalf.
When he declared martial law​ two months later, he said he was taking the measure to fight a 'monster' and 'anti-state forces' in the National Assembly.