Former Korean e-Sports Association (KeSPA) chairman Jun Byung-hun was found guilty of charges of corruption and abuse of power on Thursday and sentenced to six years in prison, according to multiple media reports in South Korea.
Jun received five years of his sentence for accepting 300 million South Korean won ($267,167) from Lotte Home Shopping, a media commerce platform owned by Japanese and Korean conglomerate Lotte. Jun also received a sentence for an additional year in prison for abusing his power as a top official and former assembly member under South Korea President Moon Jae-in.
The court found Jun guilty of abusing his power to try to pressure the South Korean finance ministry to allocate funds of ₩2 billion ($1,780,460) for KeSPA without proper documentation and accepting an additional ₩20 million ($17,811) in illegal political funds.
Jun was not taken into custody and is expected to appeal in a higher court.
"It's mortifying," Jun said following the ruling. "The court seemed to accept the results of the prosecution's unreasonable investigation into the case."
Jun was also fined ₩350 million ($311,581) and an overdraft fee of ₩25 million ($22,256) by the Seoul Central District Court.
One of Jun's secretaries, referred to by the court only by the last name Yoon, was sentenced to five years in jail and a fine of ₩500 million ($445,115) for colluding with Jun to solicit bribes from Lotte and others. Yoon was initially released on bail, but the court has cancelled the release.
Former Lotte Home Shopping chief executive Kang Hyeong-gu was sentenced to one-and-a-half years in jail for bribing Jun. The jail time was suspended for two years.
During his time as a politician, Jun sat on a committee that controlled Lotte Home Shopping's broadcasting license. Prosecutors said that Jun used KeSPA as an intermediary body to funnel and embezzle the money from Lotte.
Jun was previously accused of taking bribes from Lotte Home Shopping, GS Home Shopping and KT Corporation totaling ₩550 million ($489,805) while he served as KeSPA's chairman from 2014-17. The court found Jun not guilty of any illegal activity pertaining to GS or KT on Thursday. KT is a longtime member of KeSPA, where their KT Rolster brand has participated in the body's sanctioned events in League of Legends, StarCraft and other titles.
KeSPA was founded in 2000 as a government-affiliated body that sought to oversee, commercialize and legitimize esports events in South Korea. In its 19 years of existence, KeSPA has welcomed notable member organizations including KT, Samsung, CJ Entus and SK Telecom, all major corporations within the country. Jun came to power within the body in 2014, and in late 2017, South Korean prosecutors raided KeSPA's offices in Seoul and charged Jun in relation to alleged corruption.
The Korea Center for Investigative Journalism contributed to this report.