April 29, 2026
SEOUL – The Seoul High Court on Tuesday sentenced former first lady Kim Keon Hee to four years in prison, overturning her acquittal in the Deutsch Motors stock manipulation case and finding her guilty of receiving bribes from the Unification Church.
The appellate court also imposed a 50 million won ($33,900) fine, handing down a heavier sentence than the one year and eight months Kim received in the first trial.
However, the court upheld the lower court’s acquittal on a separate charge that Kim illegally received political funds in the form of public opinion polling data from a close aide.
In its ruling on the Deutsch Motors stock manipulation case, the appellate court found that Kim was not merely a financier or an aider and abettor, but a co-principal who actively participated in the scheme.
The special counsel had accused Kim of participating in the manipulation of Deutsch Motors shares between 2010 and 2012 and gaining 810 million won in illicit profits. The lower court had previously acquitted her of the charge.
In 2024, Deutsch Motors Chair Kwon Oh-soo and eight others were sentenced to prison for mobilizing more than 150 stock trading accounts under the names of 91 individuals.
They were found guilty of artificially inflating the company’s share price by nearly 400 percent through 101 instances of collusive trading and 3,083 market manipulation transactions.
The court said Kim’s decision to entrust Black Pearl Investment with accounts and funds worth about 2 billion won went beyond ordinary investment activity. Black Pearl Investment was the firm that managed Kim’s Deutsch Motors shares.
“If the defendant had expected the stock price to rise naturally, she would not have entrusted the firm with discretionary trading while agreeing to hand over 40 percent of the profits,” the court said. “It cannot be ruled out that the profit-sharing arrangement was compensation for the artificial increase in stock prices.”
The court also said Kim “not only allowed the stock manipulation group to use large sums of money and accounts and share in the profits, but also directly participated in matched trading.”
On the charge that Kim illegally received polling data from a close aide, the court found that public opinion polling data can constitute political funds if it carries significant monetary value.
However, it upheld the lower court’s acquittal, citing a lack of evidence supporting the special counsel’s claim that Kim and her husband, former President Yoon Suk Yeol, had promised to help former lawmaker Kim Young-sun secure a party nomination in return.
The court also noted that Kim herself did not hold elected office, had not directly commissioned the polls and that it was difficult to conclude the polling was conducted in a way that clearly benefited Yoon.
On the bribery charge involving the Unification Church, the appellate court recognized both alleged Chanel handbag transactions as graft, unlike the lower court, which had recognized only one.
The lower court had found that one Chanel handbag Kim received did not constitute a bribe, ruling that the alleged quid pro quo was unclear. But the appellate court found Kim guilty on all counts involving two Chanel handbags, ginseng extract tea and a diamond necklace from former Unification Church official Yun Young-ho.
The court concluded that the gifts were provided with the expectation that Kim would relay the church’s policy interests to Yoon, then a presidential candidate.
“A high level of morality is required of the president’s wife,” the court said in its ruling. “By receiving graft, the defendant has severely damaged public trust in state institutions and in the position of the first lady.”