A Seoul court sentenced former First Lady Kim Keon Hee on Friday to seven years in prison, the latest and most severe punishment handed down to the wife of disgraced ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol in a cascade of corruption cases that have come to define one of the most scandalous chapters in the nation’s modern history.
The Seoul Central District Court found Kim guilty of peddling influence under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes, ruling that she knowingly accepted valuables from businesspeople and public figures in exchange for using her position as the president’s spouse to influence personnel appointments.
The ruling, which was broadcast live on national television, was unsparing in its condemnation. “The defendant disregarded the social responsibilities associated with the position of first lady and used it merely as a means to pursue her private interests,” presiding judge Cho Sun-pyo declared from the bench.
At the heart of this latest case is a trove of luxury jewelry including a Van Cleef & Arpels necklace, a Tiffany & Co. brooch, and Graff earrings worth approximately 103.8 million won ($68,000), allegedly received from Suh Hee Construction Chairman Lee Bong-kwan between March and May 2022.
Prosecutors alleged the gifts were provided in exchange for assistance in securing a government appointment for Lee’s eldest son-in-law.
In total, Kim was charged with taking approximately 300 million won worth of gifts, and the court found her guilty on all counts.
The court was equally pointed in its assessment of Kim’s moral culpability. The court said she “unhesitatingly accepted valuables of a kind that the average citizen would struggle to acquire even once in a lifetime.”
Prosecutors also accused Kim of attempting to cover her tracks. The judge said Kim sought to evade responsibility by returning some of the gifts once an investigation got under way, or by arguing she had purchased them herself. “This shows that she was fully aware of the illegality of her actions but tried to conceal it,” the judge said.
Friday’s sentencing is not Kim’s first brush with the courts it is, in fact, the culmination of a relentless series of legal proceedings that have systematically dismantled her public standing.
In January 2026, a Seoul court sentenced her to one year and eight months in jail after finding her guilty of accepting bribes from Unification Church officials in return for political favors.
That sentence was later escalated when an appeals court sentenced her to four years in prison for stock manipulation and bribery, reversing a lower court’s ruling that had acquitted her of the stock manipulation charge.
Special counsel Min Joong-ki’s team, which had demanded a seven-and-a-half-year prison term, welcomed Friday’s ruling. Kim’s lawyers, meanwhile, were swift in their response they said they would appeal.
Kim’s conviction comes as her husband faces his own legal reckoning. Yoon Suk Yeol was ousted from office and has been sentenced to five years in prison for actions related to his short and disastrous declaration of martial law in December 2024. He also faces eight separate trials on charges including insurrection.
The couple, once South Korea’s most powerful, now find themselves navigating the inside of courtrooms rather than the halls of the presidential Blue House — a fall from grace that has gripped the nation and prompted deep soul-searching about the role of money, power, and impunity at the highest levels of government.
The Seoul Central District Court noted in its ruling that Kim “must have recognized that the gifts went beyond ordinary social courtesy and were given in anticipation of a quid pro quo.”
With her lawyers vowing to appeal and a separate four-year sentence already on the books, Kim Keon Hee’s legal saga is far from over. The question now for South Korean legal observers is whether the sentences will run concurrently or consecutively a determination that could see her remain behind bars for well over a decade.
For a country still processing the upheaval of a sitting president invoking martial law, the conviction of his wife on multiple corruption charges marks yet another grim milestone a stark reminder that in South Korea today, the scales of justice, however slowly, appear to be moving.
WHAT YOU SOULD KNOW
South Korea’s former First Lady Kim Keon Hee has been sentenced to seven years in prison for bribery, capping a sweeping corruption scandal that has brought down one of the country’s most powerful couples.
Found guilty of trading government job appointments for luxury gifts worth hundreds of millions of won, she now faces compounding prison terms alongside her husband, ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is separately serving five years for his failed declaration of martial law.
