Ministry of Justice Decides to Withhold Parole for Choi Eun-soon, Mother-in-Law of President Yoon

Mr. Choi Sentenced to 1 Year in Prison for 'Balance Certificate Forgery'... Deemed Ineligible Again in February
Excluded from Parole Review Next Month... Expected to Be Released Upon Sentence Completion in July

Choi Eun-soon, the mother-in-law of President Yoon Seok-yeol, who was sentenced to one year in prison for forging a bank balance certificate, has been denied parole.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

According to the legal community on the 23rd, the Ministry of Justice Parole Review Committee held its regular April review meeting at 2 p.m. at the Government Complex Gwacheon and decided to withhold parole for Choi.

Choi was indicted on charges of forging balance certificates to appear as if approximately 34.9 billion KRW was deposited in a savings bank four times between April 1 and October 11, 2013, during the purchase process of land in Dochon-dong, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi Province.

She is also accused of colluding with business partner Ahn to submit a forged balance certificate worth about 10 billion KRW to the court on August 7, 2013, during a lawsuit demanding the return of the deposit related to the Dochon-dong land.

The first trial sentenced Choi to one year in prison but did not detain her in court. This was because she was released on bail during the appeal process of a separate case involving fraudulent receipt of nursing care benefits. Later, the Supreme Court acquitted her of the fraudulent nursing care benefits charges.

However, the second trial court ordered her detention, stating that "the right to defense was sufficiently guaranteed up to the appeal trial, and the nature of the crime is very serious." The Supreme Court also upheld the second trial's decision. Currently, Choi has been imprisoned in Seoul Eastern Detention Center for over nine months.

Choi was also subject to parole review in February but was reportedly deemed ineligible. When deemed ineligible, the individual is usually excluded from the next month's review but can be included again in subsequent reviews.