Children of Korean presidents who've received the most public flak
Moon Da-hye, 41, daughter of former President Moon Jae-in, has recently found herself in the spotlight for the wrong reasons.
Last week, she was indicted by the prosecutors without detention, accused of driving under the influence of alcohol in October last year. She was also referred to the prosecution one month later on suspicions of operating an Airbnb on Jeju Island in 2022, without officially registering as a business.
Being a “first kid,” or a child of a president, is not easy, and it comes with significant pressures. But while some have managed to stay out of the limelight or even use their privileges for what is deemed to be good, others have drawn public flak for their actions.
Here is a list of presidential sons and daughters who have been the subject of controversy.
Kim Hong-gul, Kim Dae-jung's youngest son
Late President Kim Dae-jung's youngest son, Kim Hong-gul, was 39 when he was arrested and indicted in 2002 for accepting bribes totaling some 3.67 billion won ($2.5 million today) from businesspeople. Kim was bribed to help several businesspeople secure contracts for government-led projects, as his father was in office at the time.
This case sent shock waves throughout the country, as his father, Kim Dae-jung, was world-renowned for defending human rights in Korea, having won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his work for democracy here as well as for peace and reconciliation with North Korea.
Kim Hong-gul was later sentenced to 18 months in prison with two years of probation. He was also ordered to pay a fine of 160 million won.
In 2005, Kim was pardoned by then-President Roh Moo-hyun.
In 2020, Kim Hong-gul reemerged and decided to run for the National Assembly as a liberal candidate. In the process of registering as a candidate, he filed a false declaration of his assets, failing to report the presale rights he acquired to an apartment in Gangdong-gu, Seoul. A Seoul court ordered him to pay a fine of 800,000 won for breaching the Public Official Election Act. Still, he was elected as a proportional representative for the Democratic Party of Korea in the general election in April that year.
Most recently, Kim made headlines last year for selling off his father's estate in Donggyo-dong, Seoul, which is a site of historical significance, for some 10 billion won to a group of local businesspeople. He told local news outlet JTBC that he had no choice but to sell it due to the “hefty inheritance tax” he had to pay. The home had been where Kim Dae-jung spent 183 days under house arrest imposed by both the military dictatorship regimes of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan for speaking out in favor of democracy.
Park Ji-man, Park Chung-hee's only son
Park Ji-man, the only son of the late President Park Chung-hee and younger brother to impeached former President Park Geun-hye, was particularly known for his good looks as a student at the Korea Military Academy in the late 1970s. At that time, it seemed to some like he might be in line to carry on his father's legacy as a military strongman.
But Park's troubles started in the late '80s when he started making headlines due to drug-related offenses, nearly a decade after his father was assassinated by KCIA head Kim Jae-kyu in 1979. The younger Park was arrested and charged with using illegal drugs six times from 1989 to 2002, also receiving medical treatment while in custody multiple times. He also served jail time twice.
Court documents showed that he habitually used illegal drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamines in Korea. He also hired sex workers to join him in the act, according to the same court documents.
It seemed like the troubled son of the authoritarian president had managed to stay out of the spotlight for some time until 2011, when Shin Dong-wook, his brother-in-law, accused Park Ji-man of orchestrating a murder attempt. Shin, who is the husband of Park Geun-hye's younger sister, Park Geun-ryeong, claimed that both Park Ji-man and Park Geun-hye had ordered their followers to kidnap and murder him in China in 2007. Prosecutors indicted Shin on charges of defamation against the Park siblings in 2010. The Supreme Court in 2012 handed down an 18-month prison sentence to Shin, finding him guilty of defamation.
When Park Geun-hye was impeached in 2016 and later imprisoned for bribery and abuse of power, her now 66-year-old younger brother voiced support for his big sister.
Chun Jae-yong, Chun Doo-hwan's second son
All four children of former President and military dictator Chun Doo-hwan have been mired in controversy, mostly related to the obscure origins of their wealth.
In 2007, Chun Jae-yong, the second son of the former president, was handed a prison sentence of 2 1/2 years, with three years of probation for tax evasion. A Seoul court also fined him 2.8 billion won in the case, which was sent back by the Supreme Court.
The unpaid taxes were tied to some 7.3 billion won worth of government-issued national housing bonds inherited from his father. When he had been managing the bonds, he had stolen the identity of a homeless person to open an account at a brokerage firm in a bid to avoid authorities' monitoring.
Chun Jae-yong received another prison sentence for a separate tax evasion case in 2015. The Supreme Court sentenced him to three years in prison, supended for four years, for colluding with his uncle to avoid 2.7 billion won in taxes when selling a plot of land in Gyeonggi Province in 2006. He was slapped with a 4 billion won fine as well.
At the time, the prosecution had been investigating the Chun family as part of government efforts to reclaim the fortune of the former president, who had been convicted of taking bribes while in office in the 1980s, as well as numerous other charges, including leading an insurrection and committing homicide.
Chun Doo-hwan, who seized power in a military coup in 1979, was ordered by the Supreme Court in 1997 to return to state coffers the 220.5 billion won he had accumulated illegally while in office from 1981 to 1988. He had refused to make most of the payments, claiming to be nearly penniless, and died in 2021 without returning the bulk of the money.
Chun Jae-yong's son Chun Woo-won, aged 29, attracted widespread media attention in 2023 after a series of public accusations about irregularities and slush funds involving his family members on social media. He was later indicted by prosecutors for drug-related offenses. He was accused of taking four types of drugs, including ecstasy and ketamine, during his stay in the US in 2022.
An appellate court recently handed the young Chun a prison sentence of 2 1/2 years with probation of four years, upholding a lower court's decision.
mkjung@heraldcorp.com
