Supreme Court Confirms 4-Month Prison Sentence with 1-Year Probation for Former Lawmaker Park Sun-ja in 'Driver Bribery' Case

Park Soon-ja, former member of the Future United Party National Assembly

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] Former Future United Party lawmaker Park Soon-ja, who was indicted on charges including inducing her driver to make false statements by persuading him to retract his whistleblowing about her corruption ahead of the election, has had her suspended prison sentence finalized.

On the 29th, the Supreme Court's First Division (Presiding Justice Oh Kyung-mi) dismissed both the prosecution's and Park's appeals in the final hearing of the appeal trial for Park, who was indicted for false statement publication and violation of the prohibition of donation acts under the Public Official Election Act, and upheld the lower court's ruling sentencing her to four months in prison with a one-year suspension.

The court explained the reason for dismissing the prosecution's appeal, stating, "There is no error in the lower court's judgment that violates the rules of logic and experience, exceeds the limits of free evaluation of evidence, or misinterprets the legal principles concerning 'provision of goods' under Article 112(1) and 'false facts' under Article 250(1) of the Public Official Election Act."

Additionally, the court stated the reason for dismissing Park's appeal: "There is no error in the lower court's judgment that failed to conduct necessary investigations, violated the rules of logic and experience, exceeded the limits of free evaluation of evidence, or misinterpreted the legal principles concerning 'expression of intent to provide benefits' under Article 112(1), conspiracy and intent, indictment amendment, and 'false facts' under Article 250(1) of the Public Official Election Act, nor violated the principle of legality."

Park is accused of giving 50 million won in two installments in March 2020, about a month before the 21st National Assembly election scheduled for April 15, 2020, to her driver who had exposed her corruption, and inducing him to hold a false press conference claiming the allegations were untrue.

B, who worked as Park's Grade 7 secretary and chauffeur, threatened Park's side during the city council candidate nomination process, demanding compensation for unpaid wages, warning that he would expose Park's corruption if not compensated.

Concerned about the negative impact on the election, Park asked her aides and the head of her support committee to stop B's whistleblowing. The aides, upon receiving the request, hinted at monetary compensation to B and tried to prevent his declaration of conscience.

However, on March 11, 2020, in front of the civil service office at Ansan City Hall in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, B distributed a declaration of conscience to reporters and threatened Park's side, saying that if compensation was not made promptly, he would continue his declaration at the National Assembly Press Hall the next day, effectively ending Park's political career. When the head of Park's support committee promised financial compensation and pleaded for the withdrawal of the declaration, B declared to the reporters present that he was canceling the declaration of conscience.

At that time, B's allegations included three points: Park had falsely hired a person who did not actually work as a Grade 5 secretary during her tenure in the 20th National Assembly; she distributed gift sets of traditional Korean sweets (Hangwa) to voters every holiday; and she had her chauffeur steal flowering trees.

Subsequently, Park's side paid B 30 million won.

Although B withdrew his declaration of conscience, as demands for explanations continued from the party's nomination screening committee and reporters, Park summoned B to her office around 5 p.m. on March 13, two days after the distribution of the declaration, and asked him to go to the National Assembly with her to tell the nomination screening committee that the contents of the declaration were not true.

Park also had an election planning company employee draft a false explanation statement for B to announce and contacted a reporter to come to the National Assembly Press Hall.

At around 9:30 p.m. the same day, B, at the Press Hall inside the National Assembly building in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, announced as prepared by Park's side that the false hiring of a Grade 5 secretary was a misunderstanding because he worked in Ansan and was not familiar with the staff working in the Seoul National Assembly, and that the claim about distributing gifts to local voters during holidays was actually about gifts given to other lawmakers, which he had falsely fabricated due to misunderstanding and personal feelings. He then interviewed with reporters called by Park's side. Park's side paid B an additional 20 million won.

B was indicted for extortion and violation of the Public Official Election Act and was sentenced in the first trial to 10 months in prison (8 months for extortion and 2 months for election law violation).

Meanwhile, Park was also accused of conspiring with staff in February 2018 to send Hangwa gift sets worth a total of 360,000 won to 14 constituents. At that time, Park's office purchased 250 Hangwa gift sets priced at 26,000 won each and gave them to residents in the Ansan area, including 14 of Park's constituents.

The first trial found most charges guilty and sentenced Park to six months in prison.

However, the court acquitted Park of the false statement publication charge regarding the allegation that she had her chauffeur steal flowering trees, citing that the only direct evidence was B's testimony, which lacked consistency?he initially attached a photo of a winter aconite when announcing the declaration but later stated during the investigation that the winter aconite was unrelated and that the stolen trees were spindle trees and peonies.

The court pointed out, "The defendant's act of publishing false facts in this case involved inducing B, who exposed the defendant's official misconduct as a lawmaker, to announce a false explanation, which differs fundamentally from typical false statement publication in terms of the degree of awareness of falsity, influence on voters' decision-making, and the means and methods of the crime, thus falling under the special aggravation category in sentencing guidelines."

It continued, "B, who actually announced the explanation, was sentenced to two months in prison for violating the Public Official Election Act due to false statement publication, and the sentence was finalized. Considering that the defendant was a victim of B's extortion, and the fact that B, who is a co-conspirator in the election law violation due to false statement publication, was sentenced to prison, a prison sentence for the defendant is inevitable."

On the other hand, the court reflected favorable circumstances in sentencing, such as the existence of some false or exaggerated parts in B's declaration of conscience, Park's necessity to prevent B's declaration, the difficulty in considering the crime as having a significant impact on the election results, the violation of the prohibition on donation acts to constituents stemming from ignorance of the law, the small number of 14 constituents who received the gifts, and the relatively low value of the donated items.

Although the first trial court sentenced Park to imprisonment, it did not detain her in court, citing no risk of evidence destruction or flight.

The second trial acquitted Park of some election law violations recognized as guilty in the first trial and sentenced her to four months in prison with a one-year suspension.

The court acknowledged that Park distributed Hangwa gift sets to some constituents around February 2018 but found it difficult to accept the claim, as initially stated by B in the declaration, that Park distributed gift sets every holiday. Therefore, it acquitted her of the false statement publication charge related to this part, judging that B's later retraction press conference stating he never distributed gifts to voters every holiday was not false.

Moreover, the court recognized that Park violated the prohibition on donation acts by expressing intent to provide goods to 14 constituents, contrary to the first trial's judgment. It reasoned that the postal delivery records submitted by the prosecution were insufficient to prove that Park sent the Hangwa gift sets to the constituents' addresses and that the gifts were actually delivered to the recipients.

The second trial court sentenced Park to a lighter sentence than the lower limit of the sentencing guidelines, citing reasons such as Park's act of publishing false facts was done passively to conceal her own faults rather than actively to get elected or to prevent other candidates from winning, and that the incident arose from Park's efforts to stop and explain B's malicious declaration made to extort money from her. Even though B, a co-conspirator who caused the incident, was sentenced to prison, sentencing Park to prison was not deemed necessary for fairness.

Separately from this case, Park was arrested and indicted on the 30th of last month on charges of violating the Public Official Election Act by receiving or agreeing to receive tens of millions of won from four people, including two Ansan city council members currently affiliated with the People Power Party, in exchange for city council nominations ahead of the June 1 local elections. She is currently on trial at the Ansan branch of the Suwon District Court.