The Supreme Court on Thursday confirmed the 1-year prison sentence given to President Yoon Suk Yeol's mother-in-law, and rejected her application for bail.
Yoon's mother-in-law, Choi Eun-soon, 76, was detained in July on charges of forging a financial document to purchase real estate in the Dochon-dong neighborhood of Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province in 2013.
Choi also falsified bank balance records on four separate occasions to indicate that she had 34.9 billion won ($26.7 million) in deposits.
Choi was further charged with conspiring with an accomplice surnamed Ahn to submit falsified bank statements of about 10 billion won to the court in August 2013 when filing a lawsuit to get back the down payment on the land in Dochon-dong.
Additionally, Choi is accused of transferring ownership of the land to third parties, registering half of it under a company name and half of it under the name of Ahn’s son-in-law. Acquiring property and registering it under a third party constitutes a violation of the Act on the Registration of Real Estate under Actual Titleholder’s Name.
Choi's sentence was initially ordered in December 2021 by a district court in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, and she was taken into custody in July of this year following an unsuccessful appeal.
The Supreme Court affirmed that the sentencing of Choi by the lower courts was conducted with a clear understanding of legal principles.
