Prison for South Korea’s ‘female Rasputin’
THE woman at the centre of South Korea’s corruption scandal, dubbed the “female Rasputin”, was handed a threeyear jail term for bribery yesterday.
The conviction is the first of a string of criminal cases against Choi Soon-sil.
The scandal involving Choi and her longtime friend, the disgraced ex-president Park Geun-hye who was ousted in March, has rocked the political and business elite. Choi was found guilty of abusing her ties with the president to force professors at Seoul’s Ewha Woman’s University to admit her daughter to the prestigious school and attempting to bribe teachers into giving good grades.
The Seoul Central District Court handed down a three-year sentence on charges of bribery and obstruction, less than the seven-year term the prosecution had demanded.
Choi pleaded not guilty, telling the court that she never asked for special treatment for her daughter, Chung
Yoo-ra.
But the judges said that Choi had abused her position to get her daughter into the school and awarded good grades.
An official inquiry revealed that the school had admitted Chung at the expense of better-qualified candidates.
“She committed too much wrongdoing to consider the actions were out of love as a mother who wants the best for her child,” the court said.