Former Samsung chief fined but avoids prison in tax case

SEOUL —  A South Korean court handed a suspended sentence to former Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee on Wednesday, leaving the country’s widely known business figure free from prison while convicting him for evading taxes.

The Seoul Central District Court found Lee guilty of not paying about 47 billion won ($46 million) in taxes and fined him 110 billion won ($109 million).

But the court did not send Lee to prison, saying he just kept the assets in question after inheriting them under borrowed names from his late father -- Samsung’s founder -- and that he did not actively seek to evade the taxes.

Prosecutors had demanded a seven-year sentence and 350 billion won in fines.

After the verdict, a relieved-looking Lee said: “I’m sorry for causing trouble to the people.”

Lee, one of the richest men in South Korea, is the latest in a series of South Korean tycoons whose lawyers deftly used their clients’ contributions to the country’s economic development to help them avoid jail despite guilty verdicts.

Last year, Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo was sentenced to three years in prison for embezzlement, but a higher court suspended the sentence, saying he was too important to the nation’s economy to go to jail.

South Korean judges’ penchant for leniency toward heads of big conglomerates, known as chaebol, has often been dubbed in local media as the phenomenon of “rich means not guilty.”