Appeals Court to Rule on Former First Lady Kim Keon Hee's Corruption Charges

SEOUL, April 28 (Yonhap) -- An appeals court was set to rule Tuesday on corruption charges against former first lady Kim Keon Hee, following a lower court sentence of one year and eight months in prison. Kim, who faces charges of accepting luxury goods from the Unification Church and involvement in a stock price manipulation scheme, was set to be sentenced during a 3 p.m. hearing at the Seoul High Court. The session will be broadcast live. Special counsel Min Joong-ki's team has sought a 15-year prison term for the wife of former President Yoon Suk Yeol after indicting her on charges of violating the Capital Markets Act, the Political Funds Act and a law on the acceptance of bribes for mediation. The team accuses her of manipulating the stock price of Deutsch Motors, a BMW dealer in South Korea, to make 810 million won (US$549,000) in illegal profits from 2010-2012, receiving free opinion poll results from a self-proclaimed power broker ahead of her husband's 2022 presidential election, and accepting two Chanel bags and a Graff diamond necklace from a former Unification Church official requesting favors. The lower court found her partially guilty of accepting the luxury goods and sentenced her to the prison term while ordering the confiscation of the necklace and the forfeiture of 12.8 million won. It acquitted her of the other two charges, however, leading the special counsel team to amend its indictment to accuse her of being an "aider and abettor" in the stock manipulation scheme, in addition to being an "accomplice."