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Reporters question Choi Eun-sun, the mother-in-law of President Yoon Suk-yeol, in this undated file photo. (Yonhap)

President Yoon Suk-yeol’s mother-in-law has been acquitted of charges in a case involving her alleged opening of a long-term care facility despite not being a doctor and illegally receiving around 2.3 billion won in medical care benefits.

Some factors point to her guilt on the charges, but the prosecutors failed to prove them.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld a decision by a lower court that found Choi Eun-sun, 76, not guilty on charges of violating the Medical Service Act and committing fraud under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes.

Current medical law considers it illegal for non-medical personnel to open medical institutions. Therefore, medical institutions established by non-medical personnel cannot claim medical care benefits from the National Health Insurance Service.

Choi was charged with illicitly receiving 2.29 billion won (US$1.76 million) from the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) for patient care between May 2013 and May 2015 while being involved in running a nursing home she’d established in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, in February 2013 along with three business partners (one of whom was named Joo).

The case picked up speed after the NHIS asked law enforcement to investigate the nursing home on suspicion that it had been illegally established by someone who was not a medical professional. The police began their investigation in October 2014, and all the business partners except Choi were convicted by March 2017, with Joo — the mastermind of the operation — receiving a four-year prison term.

But throughout that process, Choi wasn’t even booked by the police. That prompted speculation that her powerful son-in-law in the prosecution service had wielded his influence.

In April 2020, Democratic Party lawmaker Choe Kang-wook filed a criminal complaint against Choi during a power struggle with her son-in-law Yoon Suk-yeol, who was serving as prosecutor general at the time. That prompted the police to belatedly reopen the investigation, five years and six months after they’d initiated it. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office filed charges against Choi in November 2020.

Choi was taken into custody in July 2021 after a district court convicted her and sentenced her to three years in prison.

“Defrauding the National Health Insurance Service for patient care is a serious crime because it financially damages our health insurance system and places a heavier burden on law-abiding enrollees,” the court said in its ruling.

But in January, an appellate court overturned the district court’s ruling and cleared Choi of charges, despite being presented with the same facts and evidence.

The two courts came to diametrically opposite conclusions about the nature of a liability waiver that Choi’s business partners had drafted for her in May 2014. At Choi’s request, the partners prepared a waiver that said that Choi took no part in the management of the nursing home and that she bore no liability under civil or criminal law.

The district court concluded that Choi “would not have needed to ask for such a waiver if she had not been involved [in criminal activity],” but the appellate court said that Choi had “apparently asked for [the waiver] to evade legal responsibility after seeing that her partners were defrauding [the NHIS].”

The district and appellate court also came to different conclusions about the fact that an individual surnamed Yoo — the husband of Choi’s eldest daughter, and thus Yoon’s brother-in-law — was involved in hiring employees while managing the nursing home for three months after its establishment.

The district court regarded Choi as being closely involved in running the nursing home through her son-in-law Yoo, but the appellate court came to the opposite conclusion, noting that Yoo had only worked there for three months.

Choi had also chaired the board of directors of the medical foundation running the nursing home, and the nursing home had been named after her, but those weren’t given much weight in the appellate court’s ruling.

With the two courts reaching conflicting judgments about the evidence, the Supreme Court ultimately sided with the appellate court.

“A conspiratorial relationship must be proven beyond any reasonable doubt, and in the absence of such proof, a judgment must be reached in favor of the defendant, despite whatever suspicion there may be of the defendant’s guilt,” the Supreme Court said in its verdict.

In effect, the outcome might have been different if the investigation had been conducted more promptly.

“This reconfirms the legal principle that a case must be found in favor of the defendant if the prosecutors’ arguments are unconvincing. That is true even when the defendant’s guilt is suspected because of dubious or contradictory claims or explanations,” said Lee Hyeon-bok, a law clerk at the Supreme Court.

“The haphazard criminal complaint filed by Choe Kang-wook and other politicians led to a criminal investigation and charges. There ought to be a full accounting of how such false allegations were raised,” Choi’s attorney said after the Supreme Court confirmed her acquittal.

By Jeong Hye-min, staff reporter

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