Aekyung employees¡¯ illegal campaigning

The Seoul District Court sentenced Park Sung-Won, a director of AeKyung Group, to 10 months imprisonment today, for mobilizing company employees and funds for the Millenium Democratic Party (MDP)¡¯s candidate, Aekyung Group chairwoman Chang Young-Shin, in the April election campaign in the Kuro-eul electoral district.

The judiciary also ordered Aekyung Petrochemical Co. to pay 6 million won and Aekyung Department Store director Lee Hee-Young, 4 million won for buying the party membership in exchange for meals at restaurants. Park Kil-Soo and nine other employees at Aekyung Petrochemical were fined 2 million won each for the false resident registrations, although they did not vote.

The judiciary found Park guilty of bribing 40 members of a senior group in Kuro-eul with food March 1, as well as mobilizing 325 employees and 14 million won of company funds from February 24 to March 22 in order to increase party membership. He was indited on 400 accounts of violating election campaign laws. The courts particularly condemned his use of both human and material resources as the worst possible crime cited in the Act on Prevention of Election Malpractice.

¡°Election brokers¡± Uhm Ho-Kon and Dang Yoon-Ok, who demanded 5 million won from MDP¡¯s Youngdeungpo-kap electoral district candidate Kim Myung-Sup in exchange for false information on voter preferences, were given a suspended sentence of 8 and 6 months respectively.