The disgraced former curator at the heart of a scandal that rocked the political establishment in 2007 published a memoir of the events on Tuesday.
Shin Jeong-ah (39) came to notoriety when it emerged that she had forged a PhD from Yale and owed her position as art professor at Dongguk University and her job as art director of the Gwangju Biennale to her powerful lover Byeon Yang-kyoon (62), a presidential secretary under Roh Moo-hyun.
The book is a compilation of diary entries she wrote over the past four years and is expected to cause huge ripples since it contains not only details of how she met Byeon, but also allegations of political pressure on Dongguk University in hiring professors, as well as corruption among government officials.
The title of the book -- "4001" -- is the number Shin was given as a prison inmate.
In the book Shin claims that in 2005, when former Prime Minister Chung Un-chan was president of Seoul National University, the university offered her a job as curator of the university's art gallery and art professor, but she declined. "It appeared from the beginning that Chung did not want to meet me solely for work-related reasons," Shin wrote. "He usually wanted to meet me around 10 p.m. and at a bar in the Palace Hotel. He used to gently nudge my shoulder or touch my arm. He only appears refined, but in reality he had a lousy sense of ethics."
Shin added, "Chung told me outright that he liked me, that he wanted to meet me often, and that I was a woman he wanted to fall in love with."
Chung on Tuesday dismissed the claim as "unworthy of consideration." He added, "We met a few times as part of a group at the recommendation of another person in the art community, but I never offered her a position as professor and there was no unethical conduct." He alleges political motives behind the publication, claiming that a staffer at the publisher's went to university with a key opposition politician.
Apparently responding to rumors that powerful politicians pressured university officials to hire her, Shin said, "It is true that former President Roh Moo-hyun was interested in how my career progressed, but he never gave me direct assistance of any kind."
The book makes no mention of allegations that Roh administration officials bought paintings at exorbitant prices following Shin's advice. At a press conference to mark the launch on Tuesday she said, "Former President Roh is no longer with us, so I want to be very careful in mentioning his name. I was worried I might tarnish his name so I was very cautious in writing about him."
Aides to the former president have dismissed most of Shin's account as "ludicrous."
