In 2002, Lee was fined for ‘impersonating a prosecutor’
Since then, he has been active as a senior member of the
Photo = Hankyung DB
It has been confirmed that a university professor accused of spreading false information and defamation by Lee Jae-myung, a presidential candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea, received 200 million won in attorney fees from Seongnam City while Lee served as mayor of Seongnam in the past.
Coincidentally, the professor has a history of sentenced to a fine for Lee’s ‘impersonation of a prosecutor’ when he worked as a judge in the past. In the legal circles, some said, “Isn’t it unusual for Lee to apply a kind of ‘criminal charge’ when criticizing himself even though he helped take the case?
Seongnam City to pay 200 million won in commission to Professor Lee Jae-myung and Lee Choong-sang
According to the ‘Status of Seongnam Litigation Law Firms and Attorney Fees’ obtained by the Korea Economic Daily on the 27th, Seongnam City entrusted a total of 10 lawsuits between 2011 and 2013 to Barun Law Firm Barun Law Firm (currently a professor at Kyungpook National University) at the time.
Professor Lee received a commission (including success fee) of about 220 million won from Seongnam City in return for carrying out the lawsuit.
A lawyer who is working as an advisor to a local government evaluated, “This is not a small amount considering that Professor Lee is not an acquaintance with Mayor Lee Jae-myung.”
According to the Kookmin Ilbo earlier, Seongnam City filed 482 lawsuits between 2010 and 2018, during Lee’s tenure, and paid a total of 12,470,58 million won in commissions. Of this, 5,061.8 billion won went to eight lawyers who were close to Lee. In the case of former Justice Minister Cheon Jeong-bae, who was affiliated with the law firm Haemaru, he took charge of 18 cases and received 280.71 million won.
Professor Lee Choong-sang, on the phone with reporters, said, “I was only paid the minimum wage stipulated in the Seongnam City Ordinance.”
Professor Lee said, “At the time, I was earning about 1 billion won a year as a lawyer.
In September of last year, he was accused of a media interview.
However, in fact, Professor Lee is a well-known person with ‘a bad relationship’ with Lee. Candidate Lee released a press release on September 24, last year, saying, “In relation to the Chosun Ilbo article under the title, Professor Lee and reporter Park Mo, who wrote the article, were accused of publicly false information under the Public Official Election Act and defamation under the Information and Communications Network Act. did,” he said.
The media industry responded, “There have been frequent accusations against press reports and related media and reporters, but it is very unusual to accuse even the reporters who were interviewed.”
In an article in the Chosun Ilbo at the time, Professor Lee answered a reporter’s interview question about the Daejang-dong development project, saying, “They claim that they returned profits from Daejang-dong to the citizens through parks and tunnels. “It is a deceptive act that deceives the people to return it as a profit and reinvest it.”
Afterwards, Professor Lee joined the Judicial Reform Committee in December of the same year as the Chairman of the Judicial Reform Committee, which was elected by the People’s Power candidate Yoon Seok-yeol.
This is not the only affair with this candidate. On November 13, 2002, while serving as a judge in the First Division of Criminal Settlement at the Seongnam Branch of the Suwon District Court, Professor Lee admitted to the charge of impersonating a public official and sentenced a fine of 2.5 million won to Lee (then lawyer). At the time, candidate Lee was charged with pretending to be a prosecutor by calling Kim Byeong-ryang, former Mayor of Seongnam, along with a broadcasting station PD who was covering the case of ‘Park View Preferred Sale’.
However, the court acquitted Lee on charges of negligence and violation of the Public Official Election Act against former Mayor Kim.
“I’m sorry? I should rather thank you.”
Regarding the reason for taking over the Seongnam City case, Professor Lee Choong-sang said, “After Lee was elected mayor of Seongnam, he called directly and asked me to take charge of the Seongnam City case. explained.
However, Professor Lee said, “At the time of the first trial in 2002, he was found guilty on the charge of impersonating a prosecutor, but he was sentenced to a fine rather than imprisonment. I would have thought that it was fortunate out of misfortune,’” he added.
When asked if the accusation by candidate Lee had anything to do with the ‘criticism’ stemming from the acceptance of the Seongnam City case, Professor Lee countered, “I should be more grateful for allowing me to run for the next election.”
In addition, Professor Lee introduced an anecdote with Lee at the time of the trial. He said, “Even though it has nothing to do with the facts of the charges, this candidate verbosely stated that he was originally able to be appointed as a prosecutor,” he said. he emphasized.
Regarding the progress of the accusation, Professor Lee said, “How do you accuse a university professor that the presidential candidate criticized you? This didn’t work,” he said.
He added, “Perhaps the candidate’s side told him not to proceed with anything because he felt that ‘there would be more harm than good’.”
Reporter Hyung-Joo Oh ohj@hankyung.com
