South Korean court sentences former first lady Kim Keon-hee to seven years for bribery

A South Korean court on Friday sentenced former first lady Kim Keon-hee to seven years in prison for bribery, ruling that she had traded on her status as the president's wife to broker jobs and business favours in return for jewellery, a designer handbag and fine art.

The Seoul Central District Court found Kim guilty of brokering bribes in violation of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, fined her 64.8 million won (about $42,000) and ordered the confiscation of the gifts she had accepted. Prosecutors had sought seven years and six months. The ruling, delivered by a three-judge panel led by Judge Jo Soon-pyo, is Kim's second criminal conviction in two months and one of the most consequential corruption verdicts to emerge from the political wreckage left by her husband, former president Yoon Suk-yeol.

A catalogue of luxury gifts

Prosecutors said Kim accepted gifts worth roughly 300 million won (about $200,000) from business figures, a pastor and public officials who sought personnel appointments or commercial favours while her husband was in office. The court detailed a string of items, several of which it ordered seized:

• A Van Cleef & Arpels diamond necklace and other jewellery from Lee Bong-kwan, chairman of Seohee Construction;
• A painting by the renowned Korean artist Lee Ufan, valued at about 140 million won, from Kim Sang-min, a former senior prosecutor;
• A Dior handbag and other items from Pastor Choi Jae-young;
• A luxury watch from a businessman identified as Seo Seong-bin;
• A gold turtle figurine and a traditional painting from Lee Bae-yong, a former head of the National Education Commission.

According to the Seoul Economic Daily, the court put the combined value of the gifts at about 292 million won. Several co-defendants were also convicted: the construction chairman received a one-year prison term suspended for two years, while the pastor was fined.

An object of transaction

In its ruling the court said Kim had corroded the public trust that a president's spouse is expected to safeguard, turning the levers of state into instruments of private enrichment.

Given the nature of the position, a president's spouse must exercise the highest degree of self-restraint and vigilance. Nevertheless, defendant Kim Keon Hee neglected that social responsibility and repeatedly accepted valuables by exploiting her influence as a means of brokering favors.

"Public decision-making that should be conducted fairly and transparently was reduced to an object of transaction for personal gain," the court said, according to the Seoul Economic Daily.

Kim vows to appeal

Kim, who attended the hearing in a grey suit and white mask and listened with her head bowed, denied wrongdoing throughout the trial. Her lawyers said they would appeal, criticising the verdict as resting on a "loose interpretation" of insufficient evidence and maintaining that the gifts were not bribes. The appeal will send the case to a higher court, a process expected to take months.

A widening reckoning

The sentencing deepens an extraordinary chapter in South Korean politics in which a former president and a former first lady are imprisoned at the same time for the first time in the country's history. Kim was arrested in August 2025, after a court granted a warrant citing the risk that she might tamper with evidence, and was indicted days later by a special prosecution team that liberal President Lee Jae-myung empowered to investigate the Yoon administration after taking office.

In April, a separate appeals court had already sentenced Kim to four years in prison and fined her 50 million won over the so-called Deutsch Motors stock-manipulation scheme and gifts accepted from figures linked to the Unification Church, finding that she had acted as a co-principal rather than a passive investor.

Yoon's own fall has been steeper still. Removed from office in 2025 after the Constitutional Court upheld his impeachment, he was found guilty of insurrection and sentenced in February 2026 to life in prison over his short-lived declaration of martial law in December 2024; prosecutors had demanded the death penalty. Several of his co-conspirators were also convicted, among them former defence minister Kim Yong-hyun, who received a 30-year term.

Friday's verdict is not final, and the legal battles arising from Yoon's brief seizure of emergency powers are likely to run for years. But for a democracy that has repeatedly put its leaders on trial, the conviction of a sitting-era first lady amounted to a rare assertion that proximity to power confers no immunity from it.