Ex-Seongnam Mayor Eun gets 2-year sentence in bribery case

 Eun Soo-mi, former mayor of Seongnam, just south of Seoul, was sentenced to two years in prison by a district court Friday on charges of bribery and abuse of power.

The Suwon District Court ordered the immediate detention of Eun after convicting her of providing special favors to a police officer in return for receiving insider information about a police investigation into her alleged political fund law violation.

The 60-year-old Eun, who served as Seongnam mayor from July 2018 to June this year, was also ordered by the court to pay a fine of 10 million won (US$7,200) and forfeit 4.67 million won.

Eun was indicted in December last year on charges of awarding a 450 million-won streetlight replacement contract to an unidentified company in October 2018 at the request of the police officer who was in charge of the police probe into her case. She was also accused of giving special promotions to two municipal employees at the request of the police officer.

The court said Eun seriously undermined the fairness of government contracts and personnel reshuffles.

Prosecutors demanded an imprisonment of five years for her in the previous court hearing in July.

Meanwhile, the same court also sentenced the police officer to four years in prison on charges of third-party bribery involving Eun.