'Forgery of Indictment' Former Prosecutor Found Guilty in Second Trial... 6-Month Suspended Sentence Given

A former prosecutor, Yoon Mo, who was prosecuted on charges of losing a complainant's accusation and forging it, received a suspended sentence in the second trial.

On the 7th, the 9th Criminal Appeal Division of the Seoul Central District Court (Chief Judge Lee Seong-bok) partially overturned the first trial, which acquitted Yoon of all charges including forgery of official and private documents, and sentenced him to a suspended prison term of six months for forgery of official documents. The appeal court dismissed the prosecutor's appeal regarding the private document forgery charge and upheld the original acquittal. A suspended sentence is a ruling that postpones the sentencing for a certain period for minor crimes, and if two years pass from the suspension date, it is effectively treated as if the crime never occurred.

The appellate court pointed out, "Losing the accusation and concealing it is by no means a light matter." However, it stated, "Considering that he was previously convicted and punished for related criminal acts in an earlier case, and that 2 years and 9 months have passed before this retrial without any special circumstances to blame him," it took these factors into account in sentencing.

Yoon was prosecuted on charges of forging official documents after losing a complainant's accusation while working at the Busan District Prosecutors' Office in December 2015, copying another accusation submitted by the same complainant in a past case and filing it in the investigation records. He resigned in May 2016 after the incident but was not separately disciplined, and in 2018, he received a confirmed suspended sentence of six months in prison.

Later, in July 2021, Im Eun-jung, head prosecutor of the Daegu District Prosecutors' Office's Major Economic Crimes Investigation Division, filed a public interest report to the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, alleging that the prosecution leadership had overlooked Yoon's forgery of official documents, bringing renewed attention to the case. The controversy grew especially after it was revealed that Yoon was the daughter of a chairman of a certain financial holding company at the time.

Accordingly, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) received the records from the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission and launched an investigation, indicting Yoon without detention in September 2022. The CIO requested a one-year prison sentence for Yoon at the sentencing hearing, but the first trial court acquitted Yoon in September of last year.