Hyosung chief sentenced to 3 years
Hyosung Group Chairman Cho Suck-rai emerges from the Seoul Central District Court after he was sentenced to three years in prison and fined 136.5 billion won for tax evasion in Seocho-dong, southern Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap
Chairman avoids custody due to poor health
By Chung Ah-young
A district court has sentenced Hyosung Group Chairman Cho Suck-rai to three years in prison and fined him 136.5 billion won ($112 million) for tax evasion.
However, he was not taken into custody at court because of his poor health.
The Seoul Central District Court on Friday convicted the 80-year-old of evading taxes worth 120 billion won but acquitted him of embezzlement and breach of trust.
The court said that his jail term is inevitable as tax evasion is a grave crime. It said that he evaded taxes worth some 123 billion won through accounting fraud and “borrowed” name accounts.
Cho was charged with forging his company’s account books to avoid the loss of 500 billion won and evading taxes worth 150 billion won and embezzling 69 billion won and breach of trust causing a loss of 23 billion won to the company from 2003 to 2008.
Prosecutors claimed that Cho allegedly evaded taxes through a paper company in tax havens and created slush funds.
The court, however, found him not guilty of breach of trust and embezzlement.
The chairman left the court with the support of employees 10 minutes after the ruling was handed down. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2014 and received gallbladder cancer surgery in 2010.
Cho Hyun-joon, 48, the oldest son of the chairman, was sentenced to one-year-and-six months in prison suspended for three years also for embezzlement. He was ordered to conduct social services for 120 hours.
The son was indicted for allegedly embezzling 1.6 billion won by using a corporate credit card for personal use and evading some 7 billion won in gift taxes by being given 15. 7 billion won through a paper company. But the court only convicted him for embezzlement charge.
“We are sorry that the court didn’t accept our acquittal claim that it (tax evasion) was not done for personal interest but an inevitable process in overcoming losses in the wake of the Asian financial crisis,” Hyosung Group said in a statement.
The company said that it will appeal to a high court.