Celebrity math tutor acquitted in CSAT question-buying case
A Seoul court cleared Hyun Woo-jin and three others of charges over payments for college entrance exam-related questions.
Cram school celebrity math instructor Hyun Woo-jin attends a court proceeding held at the Seoul Central District Court on April 24.
NEWS1
Cram school celebrity math instructor Hyun Woo-jin was acquitted Wednesday of charges that he paid active-duty teachers to trade questions related to the state-administered College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT).
The Seoul Central District Court found him not guilty of violating the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act.
Two teachers accused of accepting money from Hyun in exchange for questions and another official at a textbook development company were also acquitted.
Hyun was indicted in December last year on charges of conspiring with an official at a textbook development company to pay two active-duty teachers a combined 346 million won ($250,000) in exchange for math test questions between March 2020 and May 2023. He was also accused of wiring 75 million won to a bank account held in the name of another teacher’s spouse.
“The money exchanged between the defendants was part of private transactions and therefore does not constitute money or valuables prohibited under the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act,” the court said Wednesday. “None of the charges in this case constitute a crime.”
Prosecutors had sought one-year prison terms for all the defendants last month.
Hyun and the other defendants maintained that the payments were legitimate compensation for providing questions and did not meet the legal requirements for violating the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act.
“I was labeled the face of the so-called private education-cartel [scandal] three years ago, and that ultimately brought me before this court,” Hyun said in his final statement. “It is painful to see the teachers’ hard work cast as wrongdoing. I ask the court to rule clearly on this case.”
The scandal refers to collusion between private educators in cram schools, active-duty teachers and textbook publishers between 2019 and 2023.
BY CHO MUN-GYU [[email protected]]
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
