▲ Former lawmaker Lee Sang-jik
The Supreme Court has finalized the acquittal of former lawmaker Lee Sang-jik, who had been indicted on charges of hiring irregularities at Eastar Jet.
The First Division of the Supreme Court (Justice Cheon Dae-yeop presiding) upheld the lower court's ruling, finding no errors in the decision to acquit Lee of charges including obstruction of business and bribery.
The sentences for former Eastar Jet CEOs Choi Jong-goo and Kim Yoo-sang, who were also indicted on charges of obstruction of business, were also finalized.
The Supreme Court upheld the appellate court's sentence of a 10 million won fine for former CEO Choi, while confirming the acquittal of former CEO Kim.
A former official from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, identified as A, who was indicted for soliciting the hiring of their child and providing favors to Eastar Jet, also had their appellate sentence of six months in prison, suspended for one year, finalized.
Lee, along with former CEOs Choi and Kim, were indicted on charges of exerting undue pressure on human resources managers during the regular hiring process at Eastar Jet between November 2015 and March 2019.
Prosecutors alleged that they forced the hiring of 147 applicants who did not meet the required scores, 76 of whom were ultimately hired.
The investigation revealed that some of the final hires had not submitted proper documentation, lacked required language proficiency scores, or had not even taken the required tests.
The daughter of official A, who was in charge of allocating airport takeoff and landing slots for private airlines at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, was among those hired.
It was found that A's daughter had been rejected twice during the document screening process due to a lack of official language test scores, but was ultimately hired after a re-evaluation.
Lee was sentenced to two years in prison in the first trial after being found guilty, but the appellate court overturned the decision and acquitted him.
The appellate court determined that Lee did not directly instruct the human resources managers regarding the hiring process.
The court also found no evidence of speech or behavior that could be considered an exercise of "power," such as threatening personnel disadvantages.
The ruling stated that since there was no act that suppressed the free will of the human resources managers, the charge of obstruction of business by power under the Criminal Act was not established.
The court also noted that Lee had legitimately utilized the company's internal referral system during the new employee recruitment process.
The court found official A guilty, acknowledging the intent to accept a bribe.
However, it acquitted Lee of the bribery charge, stating that it was not proven that he was aware of the hiring of A's daughter.
For the same reason, the appellate court also acquitted former CEO Kim.
Former CEO Choi was found guilty as it was recognized that he had exercised some power in the process of hiring certain applicants.
However, his sentence was reduced from one year and two months in prison with a two-year suspension in the first trial to a 10 million won fine.
The Supreme Court ruled that the appellate court's decision did not misinterpret the legal principles regarding the "power" required for an obstruction of business charge.
Lee is currently serving a six-year prison sentence finalized by the Supreme Court in April 2023 for embezzlement and breach of trust involving tens of billions of won at Eastar Jet.
In April of this year, an additional two-year prison sentence was finalized for breach of trust, involving the use of Eastar Jet ticket sales revenue as startup capital for Thai Eastar Jet, a Thai airline.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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