Business owner sentenced for forging settlement documents in court case

A person was sentenced to prison for forging settlement documents using copies of former employees’ ID cards while on trial for failing to pay their wages.

[KOREA JOONGANG DAILY]

A business owner was sentenced to prison for forging settlement documents using copies of former employees’ ID cards while on trial for failing to pay their wages.

The Changwon District Court sentenced the business owner to two years in prison for forging private documents and submitting them to the court.

While on trial between March and May for violating the Labor Standards Act, the person submitted documents claiming to show settlements and statements of non-punishment from 11 former employees.

However, the former employee had never reached any such agreements. Instead, the person used copies of the employees’ ID cards that had been retained from when they worked at the business to fabricate the paperwork and present it to the court.

The individual, who operated a business in Geoje, South Gyeongsang, had been indicted for failing to pay a total of 133 million won ($91,000) in wages to 34 employees who had since left the company.

Because violations of the Labor Standards Act are crimes that can be dismissed if the victim agrees not to press charges, settlement documents and statements of non-punishment are often decisive in court.

In March, the person succeeded in having their case dismissed by submitting forged documents in the names of nine former employees. Additional statements for two others were later forged and submitted.

At the time of the offense, the person was already serving a suspended sentence — one year in prison suspended for two years — for a previous conviction under the Labor Standards Act in February last year.

“The defendant submitted 11 forged documents during the probation period,” the court said. “The offenses are especially serious considering the number of victims, the amount of unpaid wages and the fact that they have been criminally punished 11 times for labor violations.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom. BY HYEON YE-SEUL [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr],D