A South Korean court on Monday sentenced ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol to two years in prison for illegally receiving manipulated opinion polls for free from a political broker, in exchange for political favors that potentially helped him secure his party's 2022 presidential nomination.
The Seoul Central District Court found that Yoon violated the country's political funding law. The political broker involved, Myung Tae-kyun, received a sentence of one and a half years in prison on the same charge, according to ABC News.
Myung was accused of conducting 14 free opinion polls for Yoon between June and October 2021 using manipulated data. The court found that the polls potentially helped Yoon win his party's presidential nomination before his election win in March 2022. In exchange, the court said, Yoon exerted undue influence on his party to help Myung's preferred candidate secure a spot in the 2022 legislative by-election.
Yoon's lawyers said they would appeal Monday's ruling, calling it based on insufficient evidence.
The case is one of seven trials facing the former conservative president. Yoon was impeached following a brief imposition of martial law in December 2024, an event that triggered South Korea's biggest political crisis in decades. His surprise martial law declaration on December 3, 2024, lasted only a few hours. Lawmakers broke through a blockade of heavily armed soldiers and police at Seoul's National Assembly and voted to repeal the measure, forcing Yoon's Cabinet to lift it. The liberal-led legislature impeached him later that month, and the Constitutional Court formally removed him.
Last week, the country's Supreme Court upheld a seven-year prison sentence against Yoon in a separate case, the first of his cases to reach the country's highest court since his removal. Yoon has also appealed a February life sentence on the most serious rebellion charge stemming from the martial law declaration.
After being released from custody earlier in 2025, Yoon was re-arrested in July of last year and has since stood trial in multiple criminal cases while in detention.
