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Democratic Party lawmaker Chu Mi-ae announced that the Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of attorney Jang Young-ha—who spread allegations tying President Lee Jae-myung to organized crime—and said the president has been wronged.
On the 14th, Chu wrote on Facebook that the sentence for Jang, who propagated baseless claims that Lee was involved with organized crime, has been finalized, adding that the media that loudly promoted those lies has fallen conspicuously silent in the face of the truth.
She said the rumors aimed at President Lee were relentlessly cruel, and recalled that when she was party leader, Lee—then the nominee for Gyeonggi governor—was subjected to a torrent of slander and attacks both inside and outside the party.
She said mainstream figures even argued the party should push the candidate out. At the time, she emphasized, she urged people not to be swayed by idle talk and to judge him by his competence.
Chu said that during the presidential campaign all manner of rumors circulated amid internal competition, and that false frames such as the Daejang-dong scandal were created then. She stressed that she fought those false smears so vigorously she was even labeled the “Myeong‑Chu Coalition.”
Chu accused Yoon Suk Yeol of exploiting those false smears to pursue a series of manufactured investigations, which ultimately failed. She said Yoon’s true nature has been exposed publicly, but lamented that the false narrative the media helped construct can outlast the truth.
She added that this is why she has been making the same point for years and continues to do so: President Lee Jae-myung has been wronged.
In October 2021, during the 20th presidential election, attorney Jang cited claims by Park Cheol-min, an operative of the Seongnam gang known as the International Mafia Faction, alleging that while Lee served as mayor of Seongnam he received roughly 2 billion KRW (about 1.5 million USD) in exchange for giving the group preferential treatment; Jang was prosecuted over the allegation.
Prosecutors initially declined to indict, but the Democratic Party filed for a review, the court accepted it, and Jang was indicted in May 2023.
The Supreme Court on the day affirmed the lower court’s ruling, sentencing Jang to one year in prison, suspended for two years, on charges of publishing false statements under the Public Official Election Act.
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