Prosecutors raid then-justice nominee’s office

Prosecutors raided the office of former Constitutional Court justice candidate Lee You-jung and three other locations linked to her on Thursday as part of a probe into allegations that she pocketed hundreds of millions of won through insider trading.

Investigators from the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office searched premises linked to Lee, a lawyer at One Law Partners, to collect evidence related to the allegations.

Lee, 50, is accused of having made a huge return by selling off some 10,000 shares in local biotech company Naturalendo Tech after it went public.

The company was one of her law firm’s clients, and prosecutors suspect she knew about their initial public offering plan before she bought the then-unlisted stocks.

She was nominated by President Moon Jae-in as a Constitutional Court justice in August last year and resigned from the candidacy three weeks later as the allegations first came to light. Lee was intensely scrutinized over the issue at her confirmation hearing.

The Financial Services Commission’s securities unit subsequently filed for a complaint against the chief executive of One Law Partners, seeking an investigation into Lee and three other lawyers over the alleged insider trading.

Prosecutors plan to summon them as soon as they finish analyzing the seized evidence.

Yonhap