On Wednesday, the Central District Court of Seoul, presided over by Judge Woo In-sun, ruled that Kim "abused her status for personal gain." The judge also noted that "the higher the rank of a person, the more cautious they should be in their actions," adding that the defendant did not reject offers of assistance and was focused on self-aggrandizement.
A special group of experts conducting the investigation found that from April to July 2022, Kim Keon Hi received gifts worth 80 million won from the Unification Church, including a Graff diamond necklace and several Chanel bags, in exchange for political and business preferences.
The prosecution sought 15 years of imprisonment and a 2 billion won fine on all three charges; however, Kim was found guilty on only one of them. The judge assessed that she did not demand or extort bribes and has no significant offenses in her past.
Nevertheless, the court ordered her to return 12.85 million won (about 9,000 USD) in cash and confiscated the diamond necklace. Kim is also suspected of participating in a scheme to attract supporters of the Unification Church to the conservative People's Power Party, to which her husband belonged, and of receiving gifts for appointments to government positions; however, these cases have not yet been reviewed by the court.
Kim Keon Hi rejected all accusations, calling them "deeply unfair," although she admitted that she did receive the Chanel bags, which she claimed she never used and later returned. In August of last year, when she came for questioning, she publicly apologized, stating: "I sincerely regret that such an unknown person as I have caused concern to people."
The investigation into Kim's connections with the Unification Church also led to the arrest of its leader, Han Hak-ja. In addition to criminal charges, Kim was linked to other scandals: last year, Sookmyung Women's University revoked her degree in art education, obtained in 1999, after an ethics committee found plagiarism in her master's thesis.
