Samsung Chief Lee Jae-yong Confesses Guilty of Drug Charges


Samsung’s leader, Lee Jae-yong, was found guilty in Seoul on Tuesday of illegal anesthetic use, the latest chapter in the legal saga of the heir to South Korea’s largest conglomerate.

Samsung is South Korea’s most important company with its electronics unit accounting for almost 20 percent of the country’s exports, and nearly five years of scandal surrounding Mr. Lee clinched the country, giving a glimpse at both ramshackle crossroads in the industry and politics and domestic life of one of the country’s ultra-rich .

For industry watchers, it has raised concerns about Mr. Lee’s ability to manage the huge conglomerate with business interests ranging from smartphones to life insurance while under a seemingly implacable legal cloud.

Addressing the Seoul Central District Court, Mr. Lee said he has been using the surgical anesthetic propofol as part of his skin treatment for five years, starting in 2015. A hospital in Gangnam, one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods, had given him dozens of prescriptions. He said for medicine.

South Korean prosecutors accused Mr. Lee of using drugs for non-medical purposes in June. They demanded that he pay a fine of more than $72,000. The court is expected to make its final decision on the case within two weeks.

Clinic staff who were prescribed the drug have been charged and are facing a separate lawsuit.

Mr. Lee, 53, is the vice president of Samsung and has been managing this burgeoning business since he suffered a heart attack in 2014, leaving his father, Lee Kun-hee, the chairman of Samsung, out of work. His father died last year and Mr. Lee is his father. son and heir.

In 2017, Mr. Lee was arrested bribe charges After being accused of paying $36 million to a central figure, Choi Soon-sil nationwide political scandal Park Geun-hye’s administration was later convicted and spent about a year in prison.

he is in prison for the second time this January for bribing a former South Korean president. Mr. Lee was sentenced to two and a half years in prison by the Seoul High Court, but Released in August on parole.

Mr. Lee is also facing separate charges for unfair trading and stock manipulation. He said he was innocent of these charges.

“I’m sorry to cause such concern about my personal matters,” he said in his closing speech in court on Tuesday.



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