Jang Yeong-ja (81), who orchestrated a notorious bills fraud case in the 1980s, has been sentenced to prison for using counterfeit checks worth more than 15 billion won. This marks her fifth incarceration. Including this sentence, she will serve a total of 34 years.
According to the legal community on the 18th, the second division of the Supreme Court (Chief Judge Park Yeong-jae) upheld a lower court's sentence of one year in prison for Jang, who was brought to trial last month on charges of using counterfeit securities on the 21st.
Jang was charged with giving 15.42 billion won in counterfeit checks to a representative, referred to as A, from a company with which she signed a contract to supply agricultural products at a hotel in Seocho-gu, Seoul, in July 2017.
The first trial acquitted Jang, stating it was difficult to see that she was aware of the forgery of the checks when she used them; however, the second trial overturned this decision and sentenced her to one year in prison. The second trial panel concluded it was unlikely she was unaware of the counterfeit nature of the checks, considering that she had committed another crime a month prior by handing over a counterfeit check for cash. The Supreme Court also found no error in this judgment and dismissed Jang's appeal.
Jang served time in prison for a bills fraud case worth around 640 billion won along with her husband, Lee Cheol-hee, who previously served as a member of the National Assembly and Vice Administrator of the National Security Planning Agency. Jang was paroled in 1992 after being sentenced to 15 years in prison and having five years left to serve.
The following year, Jang was again imprisoned for a borrowing fraud case amounting to 14 billion won. After being released due to a special pardon on the anniversary of Liberation Day in 1998, she was incarcerated again in 2000 for a currency fraud case involving 22 billion won.
Jang was also brought to trial for allegedly deceiving acquaintances out of 600 million won by claiming she needed expenses to donate convertible bonds from her deceased husband's name to Samsung Everland in 2015. In 2020, the Supreme Court confirmed a four-year prison sentence, and she was released on parole in early 2022.