A South Korean court handed down a two-year prison sentence Monday to ousted former President Yoon Suk Yeol, finding him guilty of unlawfully receiving doctored opinion polls at no cost from a political broker — polls that may have helped him secure his party’s nomination ahead of the 2022 presidential race — in exchange for political favors.
This conviction is just one of seven separate trials now facing the former conservative leader, who was removed from power after a short-lived declaration of martial law in December 2024 set off what has been described as South Korea’s most severe political crisis in decades.
Just last week, South Korea’s Supreme Court upheld a seven-year prison sentence against Yoon — the first of his cases to reach the nation’s highest court since his removal from the presidency.
Yoon has challenged several of his convictions in court, including a life sentence handed down in February tied to the most serious rebellion charge stemming from his failed attempt to seize power. His legal team announced Monday they would fight the latest ruling as well, stating it was not supported by adequate evidence.
The Seoul Central District Court determined that Yoon broke the country’s political funding laws. Political broker Myung Tae-kyun received a sentence of one and a half years on the same charge.
Myung was alleged to have carried out 14 opinion polls on Yoon’s behalf between June and October of 2021, using falsified data, in what prosecutors say was an effort to boost Yoon’s chances of winning his party’s presidential nomination before his general election victory in March 2022.
The broker had wanted a former lawmaker, Kim Young-sun, to become the conservative People Power Party’s candidate in the 2022 legislative by-election. According to the court, Yoon used his influence within his party to push for that outcome as payment for the manipulated polling data.
Yoon’s unexpected martial law announcement, made late at night on December 3, 2024, lasted only a matter of hours before lawmakers forced its reversal. Members of the legislature physically broke through a perimeter of armed soldiers and police at Seoul’s National Assembly and voted to strike down the measure, compelling Yoon’s Cabinet to rescind it.
The liberal-dominated legislature impeached Yoon later that same month, and the Constitutional Court later formally removed him from office. After a brief release from custody earlier in 2025, he was re-arrested in July of last year and has remained detained while facing multiple criminal proceedings.
