Supreme Court Upholds 1 Year and 2 Months Sentence for Kim Gunhee Associate Jongho Lee for Violating Attorney-at-Law Act

Received Money for Trial Lobbying by Referencing Kim Gunhee and Others
First Trial: 1 Year and 6 Months in Prison; Some Charges Dismissed on Appeal
Supreme Court Affirms "Reasonable Connection to Investigation Subject"

Jongho Lee, former CEO of Black Pearl Invest, who was brought to trial on charges of accepting money in exchange for promising to lobby in court for an accomplice in the Deutsche Motors stock price manipulation case, has received a final prison sentence. Lee is known as a close associate of First Lady Kim Keon-hee.

Jongho Kim, former CEO of Black Pearl Invest, is appearing at the Kim Gunhee Special Prosecutor's Office set up in the KT Gwanghwamun Building West, Jongno-gu, Seoul on July 23, 2025. Photo by Dongju Yoon

On July 16, 2026, the Supreme Court’s First Petty Bench (Chief Justice Shin Sookhee presiding) upheld the lower court’s ruling, sentencing Lee to one year and two months in prison and ordering confiscation of KRW 71.1 million for violating the Attorney-at-Law Act.

Lee was tried on charges of deceiving Lee Jungpil, known as the “primary player” in the Deutsche Motors stock manipulation case, by claiming that he could influence the trial outcome through connections with political and legal circles, including First Lady Kim, and receiving money as a result.

An investigation found that in May 2022, Lee told Mr. Lee, “We need to buy a painting from people who can help with our trial—shouldn’t we buy something worth about KRW 20 million?” Subsequently, from June 2022 to February 2023, he received a total of KRW 75.9 million across 23 transactions.

Lee also faced charges of accepting KRW 8 million from Mr. Lee after claiming he could have a police investigation into a separate embezzlement complaint dropped, leveraging his friendship with a police department investigator.

The first trial found both charges to fall under the jurisdiction of the special prosecutor’s investigation concerning Kim Keon-hee, sentencing Lee to one year and six months in prison and ordering a forfeiture of KRW 79.1 million.

However, the appellate court ruled that only the bribery charges related to court lobbying as part of the Deutsche Motors case fell within the scope of the special prosecutor’s mandate. As Lee and Mr. Lee were co-defendants in the Deutsche Motors case, and since Lee mentioned the First Lady while receiving money for alleged court lobbying, the court determined that these charges constituted a “related case” or “related criminal conduct” as defined by the special prosecutor law.

In contrast, the court dismissed the charge of receiving KRW 8 million for promising to cover up the separate embezzlement complaint, finding it unrelated to either the First Lady or the Deutsche Motors case. Accordingly, Lee was sentenced to one year and two months in prison with an order to forfeit KRW 71.1 million.

The Supreme Court judged that for an incident to qualify under the special prosecutor law, there must be a “reasonable connection”—both personal and objective—between the enumerated suspicious incidents stipulated by law. Personal connection requires either a co-perpetrator relationship with the parties involved in the suspected case or a close, investigation-worthy connection mediated by the suspicion. Objective connection, the Court explained, must be determined by comprehensively reviewing the nature of the crime, timing, location, motive, circumstances, means and methods, related evidence, and the necessity of investigation.

The Supreme Court found the lower court’s ruling that only the trial lobbying charge constituted the special prosecutor’s investigation scope, while police-related cover-up allegations did not, to be valid. The Court also stated, “An indiscriminate expansion of the special prosecutor’s investigation target could substantially infringe upon the subject’s right to due process,” and declared that the scope of the special prosecution should be limited to cases with recognized reasonable connections.

The Supreme Court also rejected Lee’s argument that evidence collected by the special prosecutor’s team during the preparation period before the official investigation should be excluded as illegally obtained. The Court concluded that the lower court had not misunderstood legal principles regarding the scope under the special prosecutor law and the exclusionary rule for illegally obtained evidence, and dismissed both the prosecution’s and Lee’s appeals.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.