Next UniFiction Minister Was Convicted in 2002 Bribery Scheme; Still Under Suspended Prison Sentence Later Pardoned by Roh

Update:   According to this, Roh pardoned  Lee last year —  which, of course, changes everything except the appeanance of cronyism, whitewashing, back-scratching, and corruption.

Funny, I don’t recall anyone mentioning that Lee Jae-Joung is a con.

Lee taught at the Sung Kong Hoe University in Seoul and served as the university president from 1994 to 2000 when he joined the then-ruling Millennium Democratic Party to become a member of the 16th National Assembly.

He helped found the governing Uri Party, but was briefly detained early 2004 on suspicions of receiving illegal campaign funds in the lead up to the 2002 presidential election, in which the Millennium Democratic Party candidate Roh Moo-hyun was elected president.

He was convicted and sentenced to a one-year jail term[1], but was released on three-years of probation.

The article doesn’t say if we’re talking small change here, so I dug a little more and found that we’re not.

Lee Jae-joung of the Uri Party was sentenced to one year of imprisonment, suspended for three years, for taking 1 billion won (US$862,000) worth of bonds in illegal political donations from the Hanwha Group just ahead of the election in December 2002.

Lee, who was then a key member of the campaign for the Millennium Democratic Party’s presidential candidate Roh Moo-hyun, delivered the donation to Rep. Lee Sang-soo, who was a general-affairs bureau chief of the camp, prosecutors said.

So we’re talking almost a million bucks.  That should be great career experience for Lee’s next job.  And not to worry, because the judge told us that in terms of Korean politics, this really is small change after all:

“I’m doubtful about whether the accused really regrets his illegalities, based on his statements during the trial,” the judge said, adding that Lee has a social obligation to reform corruption-ridden politics since he previously served as a Catholic priest.

The judge said, however, that the court gave him a suspended sentence considering Lee’s minor role as a donation carrier and the relatively small amount he raised compared with the funds illegally collected by the Roh camp.

The stories are in some conflict about Lee’s denomination.  After a brief stint in purgatory preaching, he went right back to being a senior party hack. And now, he’s a senior cabinet minister. More reason to be very worried about a Fifth Column whitewash. We have precedent.

Here’s a trivia challenge for you.  Can anyone name any cabinet ministers in any other industrialized nations who were appointed to cabinet positions while still under a prison sentence and on probation?  What, does the guy wear a bracelet?  Are you fucking kidding me?  I guess when your job is dealing with a murderous, corrupt, and evil regime, a bribery conviction is a bullet point on your resume.  Just look at the people who have filled the job:  Jeong Se-Hyun, who compared human rights for North Koreans to “pearls for a pig;” Comrade Chung Dong-Young, who set new lows for breakthtakingly stupid utterances every time he took Kim Jong Il’s dick out of his mouth; and Lee Jong-Seok, whose relationship with the truth is probably a lot like the Clinton residence.
There isn’t a hooker in all of Pattaya whose nubile flexibility that can compare the morals of this crew.