South Korean TV personality Park Soo-hong’s older brother was sentenced to three years and six months in prison on appeal and was taken into custody in the courtroom. His sister-in-law, acquitted at trial, was found guilty on appeal and received a suspended prison term.
The Seoul High Court’s Criminal Division 7, presided over by Judge Lee Jae-kwon, handed Mr. Park a three-and-a-half-year sentence for aggravated embezzlement under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes and remanded him due to flight risk. His wife, Ms. Lee, was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to complete 120 hours of community service.
“The defendant leveraged his status as a family member of a well-known entertainer to treat the victim’s earnings as his own,” the court said, calling it “a serious breach of trust deserving significant social and ethical condemnation.”
Prosecutors said the couple managed Park’s career from 2011 to 2021 and siphoned off tens of billions of won from his agencies Rael and Mediaboom, including appearance fees and company funds.
At the first trial, the court found Mr. Park guilty of embezzling about 720 million won from Rael and roughly 1.36 billion won from Mediaboom―sentencing him to two years in prison―while acquitting Ms. Lee, saying her role in company operations wasn’t proven. The appeals court reversed that part, finding she did take part in the scheme to some extent.
In earlier closing arguments on appeal, prosecutors sought seven years for Mr. Park and three years for Ms. Lee, noting that despite long-running, repeated embezzlement, the victims have not been made whole.
In his final statement, Mr. Park asked for leniency, saying he worried for his elderly parents and young daughter, but the court was unmoved. Representatives for Park Soo-hong said the defendants’ actions “shattered 30 years of trust and family” and urged a stiff sentence.
(SBS Entertainment News | Kang Kyung-youn)