Sewol owner's son gets 3 years in jail

By Kim Rahn

Yoo Dae-gyun, the eldest son of the late Yoo Byung-eun, the de facto owner of Chonghaejin Marine that operated the sunken ferry Sewol, was sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday in district court.

The Incheon District Court found him guilty of embezzlement and breach of trust.

The sentence was lighter than the four years imprisonment the prosecution had earlier demanded.

According to the court, the Yoo took 7.3 billion won in fees from seven companies owned by his family, including Chonghaejin, for using a trademark held by him from May 2002 to last December.

He obtained trademark rights for the name of Sewol’s sister ferry, Ohamana, and Chonghaejin paid him 3.5 billion won for the use of the name.

“We recognize Yoo embezzled the money under the name of trademark use and advisory service fees by taking advantage of the fact that he was the son of the senior Yoo who established those companies,” the court said.

It said a heavy punishment was inevitable considering the huge losses to the firms.

“However, we considered the fact that he regrets his misdeeds and had no previous convictions.”

The court said that while Yoo and the family were receiving such huge amounts of money from the companies, Chonghaejin’s financial condition worsened and poor operations resulted in safety negligence and the subsequent ferry disaster.

Yoo was arrested in July after more than two months in hiding following the ferry accident on April 16 that claimed more than 300 lives — the bodies of 304 people have been recovered while nine are still missing.

His father, Yoo Byung-eun, was confirmed dead on July 21, about 40 days after his body was first found near his vacation home. Police initially failed to identify the body.

In the meantime, the late senior Yoo’s brothers, Byung-il and Byung-ho, were given a suspended jail term and two years in prison, respectively, for embezzlement and breach of trust at the companies for which they worked, which were also set up by the Yoo family.

Four other aides to the late senior Yoo, who were heads or high-ranking officials of the companies set up by the family, were sentenced to two to four years for embezzlement or breach of trust as well. Six other aides received suspended jail terms for the same charges.