Veteran South Korea crooner convicted of art fraud
Jo Young-nam sentenced to 10 months in jail suspended for two years for hiring ‘assistants’ to produce artwork passed off as his own
By You Soo-sun
Singer Jo Young-nam received a 10-month jail sentence with two years of probation at his trial on charges of art fraud involving hundreds of paintings, Wednesday.
The Seoul Central District Court gave the verdict on the grounds that his hired “assistants” did more than merely assist, but participated as individual artists.
Jo was indicted in June for earning 150 million won (US$132,626) by selling the problematic paintings credited to his name between September 2011 and January 2015. He hired other artists to produce the paintings, to which he merely added slight touches before selling them.
Jo earlier denied the accusations, saying he “never thought hiring assistants was a problem or illegal.”