Investigation contradicts judge’s account of leaving before drinks, CIO says he stayed four to five hours

The investigation into Judge Ji Gwi-yeon has produced a conclusion that directly conflicts with his earlier explanation: the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials says he remained at a private bar for roughly four to five hours, rather than leaving before the drinking began.

The agency’s third investigation division indicted Ji without detention for allegedly violating South Korea’s Improper Solicitation and Graft Act. It alleges that, in August 2023, two lawyers paid about 4.09 million won in drinks and other hospitality for Ji at a reservation-only bar in Seoul’s Gangnam district. The amount exceeded the 1 million won limit for a single instance of hospitality.

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The amount of money and other benefits provided by the same person did not exceed 1 million won, so the legal elements of a violation of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act cannot be met.

Investigators cited taxi-boarding records and other evidence during a briefing. Ji had previously told the Supreme Court’s ethics inspection office that he had dinner with junior members of the legal profession, stopped briefly at a nearby bar at their invitation to take a commemorative photograph, and left before the drinking began. During the CIO investigation, he denied the allegations, said he could not remember what happened, and reportedly said he had fallen asleep because he was drunk.

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Although one of the providers had a first-instance case that lost and was later won on appeal while Judge Ji was working at Suwon District Court in 2013, the circumstances were insufficient to regard the hospitality as compensation for past official duties, given that the case occurred 10 years before the hospitality.

The CIO also identified another gathering at the same venue in September 2024, when five people including Ji spent about 4.16 million won. It did not prosecute that case because the hospitality amounted to about 830,000 won per person and investigators found it difficult to establish a connection with Ji’s official duties.

The agency examined whether the lawyers sought favorable treatment in court but found no cases handled by Ji’s panel involving them. It also said a lawyer had won an appeal in 2013 while Ji worked at Suwon District Court, but considered that too remote, coming a decade before the hospitality, to establish bribery. Ji’s lawyer argues that the law cannot treat the two lawyers as one provider because each paid separately at different times, keeping the amount from exceeding 1 million won per person. The Supreme Court ethics office had concluded in September that the facts then known did not establish a link to Ji’s duties.

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This is the first case in which we have indicted someone for a related crime that is not a high-ranking official’s crime.