{"id":11036,"date":"2026-06-26T22:01:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T15:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/south-korean-court-sentences-former-first-lady-to-seven-years-for-bribery\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T22:02:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T15:02:07","slug":"south-korean-court-sentences-former-first-lady-to-seven-years-for-bribery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/south-korean-court-sentences-former-first-lady-to-seven-years-for-bribery\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korean Court Sentences Former First Lady to Seven Years for Bribery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kim Keon Hee, the former First Lady of South Korea, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for accepting bribes during her husband President Yoon Suk Yeol<\/a>'s administration. The Seoul Central District Court delivered the verdict on June 26, 2026, finding her guilty of receiving luxury items in exchange for political favors.<\/p>\n

Lead judge Cho Sun-pyo stated that Kim exercised her influence as first lady to offer jobs and business advantages, receiving bribes \u201cwithout hesitation.\u201d The court revealed that she accepted jewelry valued at over 100 million won (approximately $64,750) from the owner of a construction company in return for securing a government job for his son-in-law.<\/p>\n

Additionally, a pastor provided her with a Dior bag and other gifts in exchange for favors related to public officials' duties.<\/p>\n

Kim was also found to have received a painting by renowned artist Lee Ufan from a former prosecutor to support his bid for office, and a golden turtle ornament from the former head of the National Education Commission in exchange for an appointment to that position.<\/p>\n

Alongside her prison sentence, Kim was fined 64.8 million won (around $42,000) and ordered to forfeit the luxury items she received.<\/p>\n

Despite the court's ruling, Kim has denied the charges, asserting that the gifts were not bribes, and her legal team has announced plans to appeal the decision. This sentencing follows a previous four-year prison term handed to Kim in April for stock manipulation and bribery related to South Korea<\/a>'s Unification Church.<\/p>\n

Her husband, Yoon Suk Yeol, is currently serving a life sentence for military-related offenses, including sending military drones into North Korea, which prosecutors claimed was intended to create a pretext for declaring martial law in December 2024.<\/p>\n

Yoon was impeached in 2025 after facing allegations of misconduct, including vetoing three opposition-backed bills aimed at investigating claims against Kim, following the emergence of a video that appeared to show her accepting a luxury handbag in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kim Keon Hee, former First Lady of South Korea, receives a seven-year prison sentence for bribery linked to her husband’s presidency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[491,495,492,496,494,490,493],"class_list":["post-11036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-bribery","tag-court-ruling","tag-kim-keon-hee","tag-luxury-gifts","tag-political-scandal","tag-south-korea","tag-yoon-suk-yeol"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11043,"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11036\/revisions\/11043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}