By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
Prosecutors indicted Friday a former KBS program director for accepting 200 million won ($184,000) in bribes from entertainment agencies in exchange for preferential treatment for their entertainer clients in his programs.
Lee Yong-woo was arrested earlier this month among dozens of program directors suspected of taking bribes from talent agencies.
Producing several of the most popular KBS programs including ``Vitamin'' and ``Yoon Do-hyun's Love Letter,'' Lee, 46, is charged with taking the money from six agencies, including Fantom Entertainment, Star Empire and JYP Entertainment.
After losing 1.7 billion won gambling at Kangwon Land, the nation's lone casino that admits nationals, Lee ``borrowed'' money from the agency heads but failed to repay most of the sum, prosecutors said.
Lee accepted most of the agencies' requests in return for the money ― he provided slots in ''Love Letter'' to new singers, including VOS and KCM, and had comedian Jee Seok-jin host a weekend show.
Top stars also curried favor with the director. The agencies representing Rain, Lee Hyo-ri, Ok Joo-hyun and Lee Soo-young reportedly all had to bribe Lee to put their stars on his shows.
Koh Jae-hyeong, an MBC chief production director arrested Thursday, was also found to have purchased stocks of certain entertainment companies at below market prices, reaping huge gains.
Fantom offered 30,000 shares of the company to Koh, who produced the hit show ``Sunday, Sunday Night,'' at below-market prices in March 2005. He bought the shares under the name of a singer's son who also ran an agency, and had him manage the money. The stock price went up, earning Koh 200 million won in months.
Prosecutors indicted him for receiving 60 million won from four agencies, but suspect he received more under the pretext of gambling. Koh regularly gambled with the agency heads at bars in Seoul or casinos in Macau.
On one occasion, Koh handed over the key of his BMW to an agency head, who then put a bag filled with five million won in cash in the car at an MBC parking lot, a prosecutor said.