Yoon's mother-in-law gets 1-year jail term for forging financial document

Yoon Suk-yeol, the presidential nominee of the main opposition People Power Party / Yonhap

The mother-in-law of Yoon Suk-yeol, the presidential nominee of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), was sentenced to one year in prison on Thursday for forging a financial document used in a past deal for land purchase.

The district court in Uijeongbu, 23 kilometers north of Seoul, convicted the 74-year-old, surnamed Choi, of producing a fake bank account balance certificate and using it to purchase a swath of land in Seongnam, south of Seoul, from April 2013 to October of that year.

The forged document suggested she had deposited 34.7 billion won (US$29.2 million) into the account.

Prosecutors pressed charges against Choi for alleged document forgery, use of forged papers and violation of real-name property ownership laws.

Allegations surrounding Yoon's wife and her family have served as liabilities for the former prosecutor general in terms of public approval.

Choi was also convicted in a separate case in July of establishing a medical foundation and opening a long-term care hospital for senior citizens in February 2013, despite having no medical qualifications. She was released on bail in September.

Yoon's wife, Kim Keon-hee, has also come under fire for allegedly falsifying or embellishing her credentials on resumes she sent to two local universities in 2007 and 2013 to apply for a teaching position.

Kim, head of a cultural contents company, is also currently under investigation in connection with a stock manipulation case surrounding Deutsch Motors Inc., a BMW car dealer in South Korea. (Yonhap)