Wife secretly took out insurance and neglected malnourished husband, receiving three-year prison term again on appeal

A South Korean appeals court upheld a three-year prison sentence for a woman who neglected her husband while his health deteriorated so severely that he could barely eat.

The Seoul High Court’s Incheon branch convicted the 48-year-old defendant, identified by her surname initial as A, of fatal abandonment and falsifying and using falsified electronic records. She had appealed the original sentence, arguing that it was too harsh.

The appeals panel rejected her challenge, saying it was appropriate to respect the first trial court’s sentencing decision and that it found no changed circumstances warranting a different punishment. Prosecutors accused A of abandoning her 47-year-old husband, B, at their home in Gimpo, Gyeonggi province, from mid-April through April 27 last year. They said she failed to arrange hospital treatment or provide adequate nutrition despite his sharply worsening condition.

At the time, B had deteriorated to the point that he could eat almost nothing apart from drinking fluids. The case also involved allegations that A secretly took out insurance, as reflected in the headline and charges concerning falsified electronic records.

“

It is appropriate to respect the first-instance court’s judgment on sentencing, and we could not find any changed circumstances that would justify altering the original sentence.