Ex-vice justice minister accused of bribing taxi driver to cover up assault case

Former Vice Justice Minister Lee Yong-gu appears to attack a taxi driver, in this Nov. 6 footage from a dashcam inside the taxi, recently obtained by local broadcaster SBS. Screenshot from SBS News

By Jung Da-min

Former Vice Justice Minister Lee Yong-gu, who has been embroiled in controversy since his appointment over his alleged assault of a taxi driver, has again been caught up in another accusation, that he tried to cover up the assault by paying the driver off.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency has found that Lee paid the driver 10 million won ($8,991) to ask him to delete a video recorded by the dashcam of the taxi, according to media reports, Wednesday.

Lee issued a statement through his lawyer Thursday and admitted that he had met the driver two days after the incident. He had handed over the cash as settlement money but it was not meant to be a bribe to ensure the footage was deleted.

“I thought it was a lot more than a normal settlement amount, but decided to give that amount of money (to the driver anyway), as I was a lawyer at the time, and was being mentioned as a candidate to be the head of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials,” Lee said.

“However, I never offered any conditions to the driver in our agreement,” he said.

In the footage disclosed by SBS on Wednesday, Lee fell asleep in the taxi and the driver woke him up when they reached Lee’s home in southern Seoul on Nov. 6. Then Lee, who was not wearing a face mask, responded by hurling insults at the driver and grabbed him by the shirt collar.

The initial investigation into the assault case had closed on Nov. 12 without charging Lee. Although the driver showed the footage to the police, the officer at the Seocho Police Station ignored it and closed the case. The prosecution is now investigating why a proper police investigation was not initiated at the time.

Lee, who was appointed to the vice minister position in December despite the controversy, handed in his resignation late last month as the controversy grew around the allegation of his cover-up attempt. The ministry accepted the resignation on Thursday.