Pharmacy Professor Sentenced to 3 Years and 6 Months in Prison for Instructing Graduate Students to Ghostwrite Research for Child's University Admission

Daughter Found Guilty of Collusion,

Receives 10-Month Prison Sentence Suspended for 2 Years

Supreme Court, Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

A university professor who mobilized graduate students to ghostwrite research results in order to create achievements necessary for their child's university admission has received a finalized prison sentence.

According to the legal community on July 22, the Supreme Court's Second Division (Presiding Justice Cheon Dae-yeop) recently upheld the original verdict that sentenced Professor A, who was indicted on charges including interference with business and fraud, to three years and six months in prison. The daughter, B, who colluded with the professor, was also given a ten-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and this verdict has become final.

Professor A, a faculty member at a college of pharmacy, was found to have instructed graduate students they supervised to conduct experiments on behalf of their high school daughter, B, in order to help her build an academic record for university admissions. The professor also ordered the graduate students to ghostwrite various research papers for submission to academic conferences based on those experiments. B used these achievements to gain admission to the Seoul National University School of Dentistry.

Additionally, Professor A was charged with managing jointly and misappropriating part of the labor costs from research projects commissioned by the university's Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation for personal use, as well as fraudulently registering students who did not participate in the research to embezzle research funds.

The key issues in the trial included whether the act of misleading academic conference evaluators with research ghostwritten by graduate students constituted "interference with business by fraudulent means," and whether the process of embezzling research funds involved fraudulent conduct and an intent to unlawfully acquire benefits.

Previously, the court of first instance found Professor A guilty as charged and sentenced them to three years and six months in prison, while sentencing their daughter B to ten months in prison, suspended for two years. The appellate court also dismissed their appeals and maintained the initial verdict.

The Supreme Court affirmed the lower courts' decision. The Supreme Court found that there was no violation of the rules of logic and experience or any misinterpretation of the relevant legal principles, and thus dismissed the appeals and finalized the rulings.

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