This episode in ongoing saga of presidential candidate Yoon Seok-yeol's family corruption came to a head when the leading conservative candidate's wife Kim Geon-hee decided to talk to the press about her alleged wrongful acts in the past. Specifically, she decided to publicly address the viral internet rumors that, years ago, she was employed as a hostess at the night club in the Renaissance Ramada Hotel in Seoul. The allegations orginated with the independent investigative web site 열린공감TV on youtube.
The story widely circulated and followed on the internet and social media alleges that Kim in the capacity of hostess at the night club came to have a relationship with prosecutor Yang Dae-taek, with whom she cohabited while said prosecutor's wife was living in the US with the rest of his family. According to the reports, Yang and Kim even went on an extended European vacation tour while Kim's mother sent money to Yang's wife in the US. This would be little more than scandal mongering if it weren't for allegations that prosecutor Yang improperly accepted such gifts and favors to influence the outcome of litigation subsequent to a fraudulent business transaction between Kim's mother and her former business partner Jang Dae-taek. Jang went to prison and lost over two million dollars while mother Choi walked away from court nominally blameless with all the money.
Jang and now Yang Dae-taek's mother allege that Kim and Yang lived together in the Seocho Acrovista luxury apartments, before Kim Geon-hee was introduced to Yoon Seok-yeol, another up and coming senior prosecutor at the time. Kim allegedly dumped Yang, and moved in with Yoon in the same Acrovista building. Kim and Yoon married on short notice in 2012 when Yoon was accused by Jang of having a relationship with someone with an interest in ongoing litigation. Jang, over the years, never gave up on his attempts to seek legal redress against the alleged injustice perpertrated by Kim's mother, Choi, who is now Yoon's mother in law. Choi is currently in jail awaiting a review trial on unrelated medical payments fraud charges. She was recently found guilty at the first trial.
So Kim chose to defend her reputation publicly by stating in a friendly media interview that allegations about her prior secret life as hostess Julie couldn't be true because she was too busy working on her bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees.
Unfortunately, one enterprising reporter obtained some documentation related to Kim's alleged doctorate dissertation, the cover of which appears in the image above. The title page of the thesis reveals two things almost instantly upon a cursory look. The first is that the putative author Kim, really had no idea what the paper was about, because she or someone else obviously mistranslated the title into unintelligible nonsense in which the expression "member Yuji" replaces the expression "member retention," in an ostensible marketing research study to evaluate the effectiveness of promotional contents by researching the retention or loss of members of an online marketing enterprise. The error appears to be a common one occurring in mechanical translation applications devoid of context knowledge. Observers joke that it must have been google translate. What it implies is that the author had no knowledge of the context of the thesis either. The second obvious implication in the nonsensical thesis title translation is that a doctoral review committee (ethically) could not have possibly let such a gross error pass through it's academic review. To be precise, it raises the issue whether any such review even occured.
Other aspects of the suspicious nature of the thesis involve independent assessments that large portions of the thesis text are plagiarized. Necessarily, Kookmin University was prompted to intiate what appears to be a rather labored and time consuming administrative investigation and review process which includes a preliminary investigation, the formulation a preliminary investigative committee, the report on its findings, and if warranted, the submission of the findings to a formal consideration by a broader academic ethics review committee yet to be formed, and then a final report on its findings and recommendation. The final decision by the university doesn't have to take place until February 2, 2022, approximately one month before the presidential election March 6, 2022. It almost seems as if the entire schedule were formulated with a view toward the electoral process.
One could easily anticipate that the Yoon family will litigate to interpose a legal injunction of the formal academic ethics review proceeding at some point, as a violation of the prospective first lady's constitutional rights. This is what Yoon did to avoid his suspension by the Justice Ministry's committee appointed to investigate his professional misconduct. Between the injunction and Yoon's later resignation as Prosecutor General of South Korea, the disciplinary committee's findings of professional misconduct and sanctions had no effect whatever on Yoon. Yoon resigned ostensibly to comply with the one year cooling off period that some unelected government officials must abide by to qualify to run for elective office. Yoon is currently the leading conservative candidate running for president of South Korea.
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