Former first lady files appeal with top court after sentencing for charges of bribery, manipulation
Published: 04 May. 2026, 11:28
Updated: 04 May. 2026, 19:37
![Former first lady Kim Keon Hee enters a courtroom at the Seoul Central District Court on Dec. 3, 2025 [NEWS1]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2026/05/04/3e4434c2-2194-41ad-82b3-ac329eac0648.jpg)
Former first lady Kim Keon Hee enters a courtroom at the Seoul Central District Court on Dec. 3, 2025 [NEWS1]
Both the prosecution and Kim Keon Hee filed appeals with the Supreme Court after an appellate court sentenced the former first lady to four years in prison on charges including stock price manipulation and bribery.
The special prosecution team said it submitted its appeal to the Seoul High Court's criminal division on Monday. Kim's legal team filed its own appeal on Thursday.
The appellate court handed down the sentence with a 50 million won ($33,900) fine on Tuesday, raising Kim's sentence from 20 months to four years in prison as it found her partially guilty of stock price manipulation scheme and and bribery linked to the Unification Church.
Unlike the first instance court, the appellate court found Kim guilty as a joint perpetrator in the manipulation of Deutsch Motors' stock price. "It can be recognized that she participated with the intent of joint execution, going beyond merely tolerating the price manipulation," the court said.
Deutsch Motors Chairman Kwon Oh-soo and eight others were convicted two years ago of violating the Capital Markets Act by conducting the scheme, which used more than 150 accounts under 91 names to artificially inflate the company’s share price by nearly 400 percent through coordinated trades and thousands of transactions.
The appeals court also reversed the lower court’s finding that some of the offenses had exceeded the statute of limitations.
While the first trial treated the manipulations as separate incidents, the appellate court ruled that they constituted a single, continuous act extending through December 2012, thereby holding the charges valid.
On bribery charge, the court found Kim guilty of graft by accepting all valuables provided by figures linked to the Unification Church, including two Chanel handbags, ginseng extract and a Graff diamond necklace. It ordered the confiscation of the Graff necklace and an additional forfeiture of 20.94 million won.
"The defendant has not acknowledged culpability and has consistently offered excuses," the court said in explaining its sentencing.
On the brokerage corruption charges, the court said that "the spouse of the president occupies a position closest to the president, who is vested with broad authority and can offer counsel, giving them significant influence, as well as symbolic significance as someone who represents the country alongside the president," adding that Kim had "exploited that position to engage in brokerage corruption."
Kim's defense team said immediately after the appellate sentencing that the court had "overinterpreted certain circumstantial evidence and there may be grounds for violation of evidence rules," vowing to appeal to the Supreme Court. The defense has also argued that "there is absolutely no direct evidence of awareness of stock manipulation, and recognizing joint perpetration based solely on some indirect circumstances contradicts existing precedents."
The special prosecution also filed a separate appeal on Thursday against the appellate court's two-year sentence for Yun Young-ho, former head of the Unification Church, who faces charges of delivering money and valuables to Kim and a People Power Party lawmaker with the intent of lobbying on Unification Church matters.
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.
BY CHO MUN-GYU [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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