Former South Korean First Lady Sentenced to 20 Months in Prison for Bribery

The wife of South Korea’s ousted former president has been sentenced to 20 months in prison for accepting bribes from the Unification Church.

However, 52-year-old Kim Keon-hee was cleared of charges relating to stock price manipulation and receiving free opinion polls from a political broker ahead of the 2022 presidential election, which her husband, Yoon Suk Yeol, won.

Yoon himself has been sentenced to five years in prison for abusing power and obstructing justice connected to his unsuccessful martial law attempt in 2024.

This is the first time in South Korea’s history that a former presidential couple have been convicted simultaneously. On Wednesday, Judge Woo In-sung of the Seoul Central District Court said Kim “misused her position as a means of pursuing personal gain.”

“The higher one’s position, the more consciously one must guard against such conduct… The defendant failed to reject solicitations and was preoccupied with self-adornment,” the judge added.

A special counsel team investigating the case stated that Kim received 80 million won (approximately $56,000) in gifts—including a Graff diamond necklace and several Chanel handbags—from the Unification Church between April and July 2022, in exchange for political and business favors.

The prosecution had requested a 15-year prison term and a fine of 2 billion won covering all three charges, but Kim was convicted of only one charge. The court noted she neither demanded nor solicited the bribes and had no significant criminal record.

She was ordered to return 12.85 million won in cash, and the diamond necklace was also confiscated.

Kim faces additional charges related to allegedly recruiting Unification Church followers to the conservative People Power Party and accepting gifts in return for government job appointments, which have yet to be heard in court.

The former first lady denied all allegations, calling them “deeply unjust,” though she admitted to receiving the Chanel bags, which she claimed were later returned unused. She publicly apologized in August, stating, “I am truly sorry that a nobody like me has caused concern to the people.”

Investigations into Kim’s ties to the Unification Church also led to the arrest of church leader Han Hak-ja.

Beyond the criminal case, Kim has faced other controversies. Last year, Sookmyung Women’s University revoked an art education degree she earned in 1999 after an ethics panel determined she had plagiarized her master’s thesis.