Kim In-seob, center, who previously served as the campaign policy chief for opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, arrives at a Seoul A Seoul court sentenced a suspected lobbyist to five years in prison Tuesday in connection with the high-profile corruption scandal involving a property development project in Seongnam City.The scandal, stemming from opposition leader Lee Jae-myung’s previous term as Seongnam mayor, centers on allegations that the municipal government gave special favors to a private developer in connection with the project to develop the city’s Baekhyeon-dong area into apartment complexes between 2015 and 2016.
The Seoul Central District Court on Tuesday delivered a five-year prison term for Kim In-seob, a former campaign policy chief for Lee’s Seongnam mayorship bid, on charges of taking 7.7 billion won ($5.8 million) and other business rights from the property development firm in return for helping secure administrative favors.The court also ordered a forfeit of 6.35 billion won from Kim.Tuesday’s ruling marks the first court decision in the far-reaching development corruption scandal that also implicates Lee, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, who served as Seongnam mayor from 2014 to 2017.Lee is currently standing trial on charges of involvement in the scandal and inflicting a 20 billion-won loss on Seongnam’s housing development agency.Prosecutors have concluded that Kim illegally lobbied then Seongnam Mayor Lee and one of his aides to have the private developer, Seongnam R&D PFV, picked as the sole partner of the development project to the exclusion of the city-run development agency, Seongnam 온라인카지노 Development Corp