# Ousted President Yoon Convicted Under Election Law, Leaving His Party a 27 Million Dollar Bill > A Seoul court handed Yoon Suk-yeol a suspended prison term for making false statements during his 2022 campaign, a verdict that, if upheld, would force the People Power Party to return about 39.7 billion won in state campaign subsidies. - Source: Korea First - Canonical URL: https://koreafirst.tv/article/ousted-president-yoon-convicted-under-election-law-leaving-his-party-a-27-million-dollar-bill - Author: Korea First Staff - Section: Politics - Published: 2026-07-27T15:11:42.271Z - Updated: 2026-07-27T15:11:42.271Z - Tags: Yoon Suk-yeol, election law, People Power Party, Seoul Central District Court, Kim Keon-hee, 2022 election --- A Seoul court on Monday convicted Yoon Suk-yeol, the ousted former president, of violating election law during his 2022 run for office, handing him a suspended prison sentence and leaving his party facing a bill that could run to tens of billions of won. The Seoul Central District Court sentenced Yoon to a year and a half in prison, suspended for three years, concluding that he had made false statements to voters while campaigning as the People Power Party's candidate. Prosecutors had asked for two years. ## What the court found The case turned on two claims Yoon made in the weeks before the March 2022 vote. At a December 2021 forum hosted by the Kwanhun Club, prosecutors said, he falsely denied having introduced a lawyer to a former tax official who was under investigation, a denial the court judged to be more than a minor misstatement. The second charge concerned remarks at a January 2022 gathering of Buddhist leaders, where Yoon was accused of misrepresenting how he came to know Jeon Seong-bae, an associate at the center of separate controversies, and of wrongly claiming that former first lady Kim Keon-hee had never met Jeon in his company. Yoon's defense rejected the accusations, arguing that he had answered truthfully and to the best of his recollection. The court was not persuaded on the counts it upheld. ## A bill for the party The financial consequences fall not on Yoon alone but on the People Power Party. Under Korean law, a party must return the public money that reimbursed its candidate's campaign if that candidate's election is later invalidated by a final conviction. In this case the sum is large. The party would have to pay back roughly 39.4 billion won in reimbursed campaign costs, plus a surcharge of about 300 million won, for a total near 39.7 billion won, or about 27 million dollars. The obligation is triggered only once a conviction that nullifies the election is confirmed through appeals. ## A president already behind bars The verdict lands on a figure whose fall from power is already among the most dramatic in the country's modern history. Yoon was indicted in December 2025 and is already in jail in connection with the martial law episode of December 2024 that led to his removal from office. For that reason, the practical effect of a suspended term is limited for Yoon personally. Its weight lies elsewhere, in the precedent it sets for how campaign claims are policed and in the financial reckoning it hands his party. ## What happens next Monday's ruling is a first-instance decision, and the case can still move through the appellate courts, where sentences and findings are sometimes revised. Until any conviction is final, the repayment does not come due, and Yoon retains the presumption that the judgment could yet change. What is settled for now is the direction, that a former head of state has been found to have misled voters, and that his party may pay for it. --- Originally published by Korea First. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://koreafirst.tv/article/ousted-president-yoon-convicted-under-election-law-leaving-his-party-a-27-million-dollar-bill.