[2] Chung Ho-young, as Special Prosecutor in charge of the investigation would soon declare Lee to be innocent of the accusations relating to the alleged fraud and the so-called BBK incident.
Critics pointed out that the investigation appeared to have been compromised and that the prosecution may have felt intimidated, seeing as how it chose not to delve any further, likely figuring that Lee would be elected president.
[4] Eventually, prosecutors sought a 15-year sentence and a fine of 30 billion won for former BBK owner Kim on charges of stock manipulation and embezzlement.
[6] Prosecutors said in a statement that Kim had been changing the story with endless lies throughout the whole investigation process, making it extremely hard for them to draw up the protocol.
[citation needed] Subsequent to that, the very same prosecutors came under investigation and scrutiny for their alleged role in looking the other way, thereby helping to elect candidate Lee as president of South Korea.
According to leaked diplomatic cables, Yoo Chong-ha (유종하), the former co-chairman of Lee Myung-bak's presidential election campaign, had requested of Alexander Vershbow, the then American ambassador to South Korea, that the US authorities help delay the extradition of Kim to Korea asnaoight by the Korean government, in order that presidential hopeful Lee Myung-bak's election campaign might better control and effectively contain the controversy relating to Lee's alleged involvement in the BBK embezzlement scandal, there on the eve of the election season.
Samsung, as widely reported in the Korean press, is alleged to have funneled a substantial amount of money to Lee through said U.S. law firm, Akin Gump, with the aid and involvement of one or more of its overseas U.S. subsidiaries.
Lee Myung-Bak at the time was not merely a foreign official, but the sitting president of South Korea at the time: Samsung's alleged payment of DAS' legal fees to, and through, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer, and Feld means that everyone is on the hook, ranging from Lee Myung-Bak himself as the recipient of said bribes; to Akin, Gump, for functioning as the conduit as part, and in furtherance, of the conspiracy to violate the FCPA and the attendant conspiracy to violate United States law, which is a separate crime in and of itself; to Samsung and its subsidiaries through which the alleged payments were channeled; to even Lee Kun-Hee, Samsung's purportedly ailing chairman, for his alleged role in giving the greenlight on the paying of bribes (allegedly at least some of it) to Lee in the form of DAS' legal fees; to Korean-American attorney Suk Han Kim, then a partner with Akin, Gump and now with a different firm, for allegedly setting up the whole deal on behalf of Samsung and for the benefit of Lee Myung-Bak.
The Korean language Korean-American newspaper, Sunday Journal, published an article on December 1, 2011, that the U.S. Federal District Court in Los Angeles rescinded the confiscation order entered against DAS on November 17, 2011.
[13][14] The Supreme Court of Korea officially decided to indict one of the hosts of Naneun Ggomsuda, Chung Bong-ju, for false reporting of the BBK-related information.