Corruption Sentence

[Anchor Lead]

The prosecution has demanded that Choi Soon-sil, the woman at the center of the corruption scandal that led to the impeachment of Park Geun-hye, be sentenced to 25 years in prison, pay a fine of 118.5 billion won and see nearly 7.8 billion won confiscated. Here are the grounds for the prosecution's sentencing requests.

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The prosecution firmly concluded that the defendant was the beginning and end of the massive corruption and influence-peddling scandal. The prosecutors said Choi Soon-sil had used her 40-year friendship with ex-President Park Geun-hye to disrupt government operations. The objective of her actions was to promote her own personal gains. The most prominent charge was bribery, subject to aggravated punishment of a specific crime. She was tried for actually receiving 7.79 billion won in bribes out of 21.3 billion won promised by Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong to support the equestrian program for her daughter, Chung Yoo-ra. This charge alone could subject her to more than ten years to life in prison. She was tried on 18 charges altogether, including collusion with the ex-president to extort 7.74 billion won from some 50 local conglomerates to support her so-called Mir and K-Sports Foundations. The prosecution said that there was no mitigating factor for her. Choi had contacted President Park with a burner phone in an attempt to destroy evidence and claimed without any grounds that evidence, including the key tablet PC, had been tempered with. The prosecutors sought 25 years in prison and 118.5 billion won in fine for Choi and demanded that 7.79 billion won that she had already received be forfeited. Meanwhile, prosecutors asked for a sentence of six years in prison and a 100 million won fine for former senior presidential secretary An Chong-bum and a sentence of four years in prison and asset forfeiture of 7 billion won for Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin. The panel of judges set the date of Choi's sentencing on January 26th.