{"id":66515,"date":"2026-06-27T06:01:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T06:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/66515\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T06:01:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T06:01:43","slug":"s-korean-ex-president-yoons-wife-handed-7-year-jail-for-graft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/66515\/","title":{"rendered":"S. Korean ex-president Yoon’s wife handed 7-year jail for graft"},"content":{"rendered":"

A TV screen shows a file footage of Kim Keon-hee, the wife of South Korea’s former president Yoon Suk-yeol, during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Jan 28, 2026. (PHOTO \/ AP)<\/p>\n

SEOUL \u2013 Kim Keon-hee<\/a>, wife of South Korea’s former president Yoon Suk-yeol, was sentenced to seven years in prison for corruption, including the sale of government posts, live footage showed Friday.<\/p>\n

The Seoul Central District Court handed down the prison sentence, saying Kim unhesitatingly received luxury goods that are practically unattainable for ordinary people.<\/p>\n

The team of Min Joong-ki, an independent counsel who led investigations into corruption allegations involving the former presidential couple, sought a 7.5-year sentence for Kim for selling public offices in exchange for high-priced jewelry and luxury goods.<\/p>\n

Kim’s defense team reportedly planned to appeal the ruling.<\/p>\n

Kim was accused of receiving a necklace, a brooch and earrings from a businessman between March and May 2022 in return for the appointment of his eldest son-in-law to a government post.<\/p>\n

She was charged with receiving a gold turtle from a former head of the national education commission in exchange for an appointment request in April 2022 along with a wristwatch from a robot dog entrepreneur in September of the year in return for business favors.<\/p>\n

Other charges included receiving a designer bag from a pastor between June and September 2022 and a painting from a former prosecutor in February 2023 in return for a nomination request.<\/p>\n

Kim, who was indicted under detention in August 2025, became the first wife of a former South Korean president to be tried under detention.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ: Prosecutors seek 15-year prison term for ex-S. Korean first lady in appeal trial<\/a><\/p>\n

The Seoul High Court overturned the lower court’s ruling in April, increasing Kim’s prison term from 20 months to four years over charges including stock price manipulation and graft.<\/p>\n

Apart from the rulings, Kim was indicted on charges of requesting mass enrollment of Unification Church members in the then conservative ruling People Power Party to support a specific candidate as a party leader ahead of the party’s national convention in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A TV screen shows a file footage of Kim Keon-hee, the wife of South Korea’s former president Yoon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[174,173,171,34303,33,32],"class_list":["post-66515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","tag-corruption","tag-kim-keon-hee","tag-korean","tag-prison","tag-south-korea","tag-yoon-suk-yeol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}