Man in His 50s Who Cared for a Cancer-Stricken Colleague and Received a Gift, Reported for Fraud by Bereaved Family…Prosecution Declines to Indict for Insufficient Evidence

A man who cared like family for a colleague of several decades when the colleague fell ill with cancer, and who received a gift of the colleague's assets, was reported by the colleague's family on charges including fraud, but received a non-indictment disposition.

According to the legal community on the 1st, the Uijeongbu District Prosecutors' Office in July declined to indict a man in his 50s, identified as A, who had been reported on charges including fraud and extortion, citing insufficient evidence.

A was accused of deceiving his colleague B in 2014 into changing the beneficiary of a health insurance policy and transferring about 550 million won into his own account.

The complainants were B's bereaved family, who claimed that A had threatened and coerced B to extort the money.

However, A denied all the charges. He said that when B fell ill with cancer, he and his wife cared for B in place of B's family, and so B voluntarily handed over the assets.

He also added that because B had experienced an extreme property dispute with his siblings during his lifetime after his parents' death, B did not want his bereaved family to inherit the estate after his own death.

The prosecution accepted A's argument. There had been legal disputes between B and his family, such as a lawsuit claiming return of a statutory reserve of inheritance, and in the witness examination the prosecution secured a statement that B had closed his own account and used another person's account to avoid provisional attachment.

Given that it was A, not the bereaved family, who first learned of B's death and took charge of the arrangements, the prosecution found A's claim that he had cared for the cancer-stricken B to be credible.

Attorney Jeong Jaebong of Daeryun Law Firm, who represented A, said, "We faithfully demonstrated the point that A was the person who was most devoted during the deceased's illness. We focused on proving, through objective circumstances, that A had not deceived the deceased and that the assets were gifted in accordance with a complete and voluntary intention, which enabled us to obtain the non-indictment decision."

Reporter Jeong Cheoluk

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Man in His 50s Who Cared for a Cancer-Stricken Colleague and Received a Gift, Reported for Fraud by Bereaved Family…Prosecution Declines to Indict for Insufficient Evidence (Go)