The prosecution has requested a 7-year prison sentence for Park Jin-hong (56), the older brother of broadcaster Park Soo-hong (54), who was indicted on charges of embezzling tens of billions of won from Park’s personal funds and the agency’s finances.
According to Yonhap News, on the afternoon of the 10th, during a trial held at the Seoul Western District Court Criminal Division 11 (Presiding Judge Bae Seong-jung), the prosecution demanded a 7-year sentence for Park. They also requested a 3-year prison sentence for Lee (53), Park’s wife and Park Soo-hong’s sister-in-law, who was co-indicted.
The prosecution stated that although Park Jin-hong claimed to have used the embezzled money for Park Soo-hong, he attempted to conceal the details. They emphasized that no restitution has been made to date and that the situation caused potentially fatal damage to Park Soo-hong’s image, highlighting the severity of the crime and the defendant’s poor attitude. Regarding Lee, the sister-in-law, the prosecution confirmed additional harmful acts, including posting malicious comments related to Park Soo-hong without showing remorse.
Park, who denied most of the embezzlement charges, claimed during the defendant’s questioning that Park Soo-hong’s personal bank account was managed by their father and that he was not involved at all. He also explained that real estate transactions were discussed with the family, and that the corporate card usage for academy fees and gym memberships was intended as employee welfare since it was a family business.
Meanwhile, Park was brought to trial in October 2022 on charges of embezzlement under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes for allegedly diverting tens of billions of won from company funds and his younger brother’s personal funds while managing Park Soo-hong’s career from 2011 to 2021. Lee, the sister-in-law, was also indicted without detention for her involvement in some of the embezzlement.
Initially, the amount embezzled by Park and others was reported to be 6.17 billion won, but recently the prosecution revised the indictment, reducing the amount Park embezzled from Park Soo-hong’s personal funds from about 2.8 billion won to approximately 1.5 billion won after excluding overlapping entries.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
