Yonhap News is reporting that the Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol's mother in law, Ms. Choi, has been indicted for a medical fraud scheme. Ms. Choi is charged with establishing, illegally and without required medical credentials, in late 2012, a medical organization, and then for five years from 2013 onward participating in the management and operation of a medical convalescent facility in Paju. She is 74 years old. She is accused of misappropriating over 2 billion won in medical benefits She has been indicted without a warrant for pre-trial arrest. Some observers find the determination of no pretrial detention suspicious because she allegedly has suborned perjury, and obstructed justice in other trials in the past.
The current indictment against Choi was brought under the special law for enhanced punishment for economic crimes.
Yoon himself is under investigation by the Ministry of Justice on suspicion of unethical private contacts with the corporate heads of the Chosun Ilbo and Joongang media groups. At the time Joonang's subsidiary JTBC had a defamation complaint pending against a conservative pundit. Chosun Ilbo was being investigated for financial misconduct by the head of its Chosun TV. Yoon is suspected of other professional misconduct including investigating judges in critical cases and interfering in cases in which he has a conflict of interest.
Last April Choi Kang-uk (no relation to Ms. Choi the accused) an Assembly member on the left accused Yoon of interference in the earlier investigation of his mother in law's three business partners in the illegal medical scheme. The partners have been already been found guilty of fraud, but no charges were brought against Ms. Choi at that time. The reason given that upon her unqualified appointment as director of the medical organization, Ms. Choi obtained a waiver of legal responsibility. Upon reinvestigation of the case, it has been reported that prosecutors revealed one of the partners gave a statement that the legal waiver document is a forgery.
In another development Joongang Daily has reported that a record exists of Yoon meeting with his former colleage, Lee Kyu-chol, during the pendency of an investigation into the Optimus Fund. Allegedly, at the time of their meetings, Lee was advising Optimus which was suspected of financial violations in the management of private and government investments. Yoon, head of the Seoul Prosecutors Central District Branch Office gave a clean bill of health to Optimus which stayed in business a while longer ruining thousands of investors when the investment fund finally collapsed due to financial fraud. This particular report in the Joongang Daily may be a turning point in the remarkably friendly relationship demonstrated by the major media cartels and Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol. Typically they have either ignored reports of suspicious acts by Yoon or his family or caste aspersions on those generating the allegations.
The Blue Roof is reporting in their analysis that Minister Chu Mi-ae has suspended Yoon pending investigation:
https://www.blueroofpolitics.com/p/breaking-news-alert/
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