Former Lawmaker Kweon Seong-dong Loses Seat After Court in Seoul, South Korea, Upholds Sentence Over Unification Church Funds

Kweon Seong-dong, a five-term lawmaker from the conservative People Power Party, served as the party’s floor leader during the administration of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, whom he is described as a close confidant of. Yoon has been impeached. A Seoul-based report from September 2025 said Kweon was the first sitting South Korean lawmaker to be arrested in a quarter-century of independent prosecutions, and that he had been detained on charges of accepting illicit funds from the Unification Church.

According to the reports, Kweon was accused of receiving 100 million won from Yun Young-ho, a former senior Unification Church official, in January 2022. Prosecutors alleged that the money was provided on the expectation that Kweon would advocate for the church’s policy interests in support of Yoon, then a presidential candidate. The reports describe the payment as illicit political funds.

At first instance, the Seoul Central District Court sentenced Kweon to a two-year prison term. One report gives the forfeiture as 100 million won ($70,000), while another gives the same sum as $67,800. The court ordered forfeiture for receiving the funds from a Unification Church official. Presiding Judge Woo In-sung said the defendant had undermined public trust and abandoned his constitutional duties by accepting the money.

The Seoul High Court later upheld the two-year sentence. In that ruling, the court said the case was “far more serious than an ordinary violation of the Political Funds Act.” The reports do not agree on the date of the appellate ruling. One report is dated January 2022, which conflicts with the reported timing of the payment in the same month, and the other reports do not give a date for it.

The Supreme Court later confirmed the two-year jail term, according to a 2026 report. The court also ruled that Kweon must forfeit the 100 million won. That report carries the headline that Kweon lost his seat over the Unification Church bribery scandal, and it describes the case as one in which honest dealing with public funds was at issue (Proverbs 11:1). The report states that Kweon served as floor leader of the People Power Party during Yoon’s administration.