The twin sisters, who were handed over to the trial for taking the Sookmyung Girls' High School entrance exam after seeing the answers leaked by the father of the head of education, were found guilty at the first trial and also at the appeals court, and sentenced to a suspended sentence of imprisonment.



The Seoul Central District Court Criminal Cases Division 5-3 (Judge Lee Kwan-hyung, Choi Byung-ryul, Won Jeong-suk, and Won Jeong-suk) today (21st) sentenced the twin daughters (21) of Hyun-mo, the former head of school affairs at Sookmyung Girls' High School, to one year and six months in prison and three years of probation. He was sentenced to one year in prison and three years of probation.



The first trial ordered 240 hours of community service, but the court of appeals did not order community service.



The court found that the twin sisters got the correct answer even though there were signs that the wrong values ​​were substituted on the test paper, that they wrote the answers before their answers were corrected, unlike other high-ranking students, that traces of leaked answers were noted on Post-it notes, etc. He pleaded guilty based on several circumstances and evidence.



However, the court of appeals judged that the first instance judgment, which admitted that the two sisters were accomplices in each other's crimes, was legally problematic, and overturned the judgment and set the sentence.



The court also pointed out, "The defendants do not repent, claiming that they received their grades fairly, even though they not only directly harmed students of the same grade who tried to improve their grades in a normal way, but also seriously damaged the trust of public education."



However, the court said, "In this case, my father was sentenced to three years in prison and served in prison, and the accused, who were 15-16 years old at the time of the crime, were expelled from Sookmyung Girls' High School. I took into account the fact that I was criticized and criticized,” he explained, explaining the background of the sentencing.



At today's sentencing hearing, only the younger brother of the sisters attended, and his father, Hyun, who was sentenced to prison in this case and served a sentence, also watched the verdict in court.



The lawyer explained that her older sister, who had previously missed the hearing several times for health reasons, was hospitalized.



When his father, Hyun, was convicted, he shouted in court, "It's nonsense," and "No matter how contradictory, we have to keep our conscience."



These sisters were handed over to trial on charges of interfering with the school's grade evaluation work (obstruction of business) by taking the exam five times from the final exams of the first semester of 2017, when they were first graders at Sookmyung Girls' High School, to the final exams of the first semester of the following year. .



The twins denied the allegations from the first trial.



The sisters were expelled from school in October 2018, shortly after the police released the results of the investigation.



Father Hyun, who was handed over to trial before his two daughters, was found guilty of obstruction of business and was sentenced to three years in prison by the Supreme Court in March 2020.



(Photo = Yonhap News)