Cheonan Law Office | The Cheonan Law Office Assisted a Client Wrongly Accused of Embezzlement and Theft, Concluding the Matter with a No-Referral Decision

The client who visited the Cheonan law office was a home-visit care worker.

The client had been charged by the guardian of the care recipient with embezzlement and larceny.

These guardians claimed that the client had taken money from the care recipient's bankbook and had stolen the care recipient's necklace from the home.

The client maintained that this was entirely untrue and wished to respond to the injustice.

Embezzlement refers to the act of unlawfully using another person's property or money.

The crime of embezzlement is punishable by imprisonment for up to 5 years or a fine of up to 15 million won.

🔗Larceny / Theft refers to the crime of stealing another person's property, and under the Criminal Act it may be punishable by imprisonment for up to 6 years or a fine of up to 10 million won.

The Cheonan law office raised a question about the fact that the statement regarding the allegation came from the recipient of the client's care, an elderly person in his eighties suffering from dementia.

The care recipient was a patient suffering from dementia who tended to exaggerate and insist on things that had not occurred.

In fact, the care recipient claimed that the client had stolen his necklace, yet was unable to describe specifically which necklace it was.

In addition, all of the care recipient's bankbooks were kept in a safe in the house.

Given that the care recipient himself did not properly remember the password to the safe, it is difficult to conclude that the client found out the bankbook password, took the bankbooks from the safe, and embezzled the money.

The Cheonan law office pointed out the care recipient's impaired mental state and argued that the credibility of the statement was very low.

Three CCTV cameras were installed inside the recipient's home.

The Cheonan attorney requested that the CCTV footage be obtained or seized and verified.

The Cheonan attorney emphasized that the client did not even know of the existence of the necklace at issue in this case or the password to the safe containing the bankbook, and therefore could not have stolen them.

The Cheonan attorney requested a no-referral decision for the client, on the ground that the complaint in this case was nothing more than a one-sided false claim by the complainant.