Lee Jae-yong, the vice chairman and heir to the Samsung conglomerate, has been facing an unprecedented legal challenge for the past few years. There were allegations of bribes being paid to Park Geun-hye, the former President of South Korea, and her close friend Choi Soon-sil in order to obtain the government's approval for a controversial merger which allowed the Lee family to cement its control over the conglomerate.
The allegations were fought in courts but Lee found himself going to prison for the first time in 2017. He was sentenced to five years in prison at that time. Lee had appealed the ruling and was able to secure his release while the Supreme Court order a retrial of the case. The retrial ended up in Lee being sent to prison once again. However, this time around, he's not looking for an early exit.
Prosecutors could still ask for a longer sentence
An appellate court in South Korea sentenced Lee Jae-yong to 2.5 years in prison last week. It was expected that Lee would opt for an appeal in order to get the sentence overturned so that he may be released from jail. However, lawyers for the Samsung vice chairman have now confirmed that Lee has decided to “humbly accept” the court's decision. He is not going to appeal and will serve out the sentence.
Lee will now remain in jail until his sentence is completed. Since he has already served a year in jail previously, he will be released in June 2022. That's without parole for which Lee will be eligible by September this year. He could receive a presidential pardon or commutation which would allow him to be released ahead of time.
Samsung and Lee seem to be willing to put this matter behind them. The course of action they've chosen is to let the prison sentence run out so that Lee may finally be free of this legal headache once and for all. They just need to hope that the prosecutors don't decide to appeal the decision.
While that might seem an odd thing for the prosecutors to do now that they've managed to send him to jail, don't forget that they were pushing for a nine year prison sentence for Lee during the retrial. If they feel that the 2.5 year sentence isn't enough, they can appeal the decision and try to get a longer sentence.
Monday is the deadline for filing of the appeal and if the prosecutors haven't done that by the end of business today, this sword will no longer be hanging over Lee's head.
