Supreme Court finalizes 18-month prison term for aide to ex-President Park

Jeong Ho-seong

The Supreme Court finalized a 1 1/2 year prison term for a close aide of ousted former President Park Geun-hye on Thursday for leaking presidential documents to a friend of Park accused of meddling in state affairs and extorting money from conglomerates.

The sentence to Jeong Ho-seong, one of the three longest-serving aides to Park, was the first Supreme Court verdict in the massive corruption scandal that led to the impeachment and ultimate removal of Park from office last year before the end of her term.

Jeong was indicted in November last year for providing, at Park's instruction, at least 47 confidential documents, such as yet-unannounced presidential speeches, to Choi Soon-sil, the central figure in the sprawling corruption scandal that led to Park's ouster.

The highest court upheld the lower courts' ruling that found Jeong guilty of leaking 14 documents. The two lower courts didn't acknowledge the alleged leaking of 33 other documents, saying investigators seized them unlawfully under a search warrant unrelated to the case.

The Supreme Court said that the 14 leaked documents, including a list of lawmakers that Park could send to China as a delegation when she was the president-elect, contained official secrets warranting protection.

Jeong and two others -- Lee Jae-man and Ahn Bong-geun -- were considered so close to Park that they were dubbed in the media a "doorknob trio," a figure of speech implying they were holding the knob of the door leading to Park and that everything must pass through them to reach her. (Yonhap)