A Seoul court on Friday meted out a suspended jail term to a former economic aide to ex-President Park Geun-hye for collusion in a botched attempt to pressure a senior official of CJ Group to quit in 2013.
The Seoul Central District Court gave Cho Won-dong, Park's former chief economic secretary, a one-year prison term suspended for two years, finding him guilty of having attempted to coerce the group to dismiss Group Vice Chairwoman Lee Mie-kyung.
With the verdict, the court noted that Park, who has also been detained for a string of other corruption charges, had colluded in the attempt to pressure CJ Group Chairman Sohn Kyung-shik to dismiss his niece Lee.