A Sketch on Banknote Paper
"Judge! Defendant Sim Oh-han used banknote paper that had not gone through the formal approval process at the Bank of Korea. If he had no intention of circulating it as currency, he would never have drawn on that paper."
"The question you should be asking the defendants who commissioned the work, Jeon Jae-hyun and Min Yi-young, is why they asked him to draw on that paper and how they came into possession of it. This is not a matter of shifting the burden of proof onto Sim Oh-han."
In truth, the strongest piece of evidence the prosecutor had brought was the paper itself. It lacked the strip hologram, the three-dimensional partial security thread, and the intaglio latent image, but it was still paper used by the Bank of Korea.
But if I shattered that argument, how would Prosecutor Han react?
"Judge, defendant Sim Oh-han did not know what secret that paper held until I visited his studio and checked it for myself."
The judge clicked on his microphone, looking as though he could hardly believe what he was hearing.
"What do you mean by that? Are you saying the paper was in the studio? Counsel Cha Do-hyuk, speak clearly."
"The paper had been provided by an investigator. And do you know why he didn’t notice? Because the defendant’s studio had one window about the size of a 24-inch monitor and a single filament bulb."
"By filament bulb, do you mean one of those old bathroom bulbs?"
"No. It was a decorative bulb, about the size of a 500-won coin."
"...?"
He looked as though he was asking whether that could possibly light the room at all. Whether work could even be done there was another matter entirely.
If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it either.
"After visiting the studio, I confirmed that there wasn’t even the kind of work lamp hyperrealist artists usually use."
"A work lamp?"
"Yes. Most hyperrealist artists shine light from behind the canvas so they can trace the image lines they’re going to paint."
"Oh."
"If Sim Oh-han had gone through that process, he would have been able to make out the faint portrait of Shin Saimdang on the left side of the bill, at least roughly. But the environment was so barren that it was nowhere near suitable for that kind of work."
I handed the court the USB containing the studio footage, the printed photographs, and the paper itself, so it could examine them on its own initiative.
"If he had planned to make counterfeit bills for the purpose of circulating currency, there would have had to be special solutions for drawing the bill, of course, and at the very least a space for post-processing. But there was nothing of the sort. The studio had only the little bulb and, at most, art supplies like brushes."
The judge was probably grinding his teeth. He hadn’t expected the prosecutor to blunder so badly.
He turned the microphone back on.
"So if I’m understanding counsel Cha Do-hyuk correctly, defendant Sim Oh-han had no relationship with defendants Jeon Jae-hyun and Min Yi-young beyond a commissioned-work arrangement?"
"That is correct."
I swallowed my laughter and met the judge’s eyes.
"Judge, the defendants Jeon Jae-hyun and Min Yi-young knowingly allowed the date of their first meeting, as stated in the prosecutor’s indictment, to stand in court without correction."
It amounted to perjury, really.
But there was no need to irritate the judge.
So I went on.
"Please allow me to question defendant Jeon Jae-hyun on this point."
"I’ll allow it during evidence examination."
There we go.
After the other defendants’ statements were finished, the judge spoke again.
"We’ll begin evidence examination. Prosecutor, submit your evidence concerning defendant Sim Oh-han."
Prosecutor Han submitted the necessary documents as evidence, just as he had in the first trial. Then he called defendant Jeon Jae-hyun as a witness.
After the oath, Jeon Jae-hyun took the witness stand.
With their strangely synchronized back-and-forth finally over, the judge asked whether I wanted to proceed with cross-examination.
Of course I do.
"Defendant Jeon Jae-hyun. Do you remember seeing one of Sim Oh-han’s works at the Suryeon Gallery in Insa-dong around 4:00 p.m. on January 25, 2023?"
Jeon Jae-hyun shot a quick glance at Prosecutor Han.
I immediately moved to cut off the line of sight between them.
"Mr. Jeon Jae-hyun, why are you looking at Prosecutor Han?"
"My eyes were a little dry, so I just rolled them around for a second."
"Then answer my question. Do you remember meeting him or not?"
Jeon Jae-hyun closed his eyes.
"I don't remember."
"Then where did you meet Sim Oh-han?"
"At Sim Oh-han’s studio."
"Is that the one fact you do remember?"
"Yes."
"Then what did you see in Sim Oh-han’s studio?"
The defendant rolled his eyes as though he were thinking hard.
I could read the answer he was about to give from his expression.
He won't remember that either.
Just as I expected.
"I don't remember. There were things needed for the currency work. Not the art supplies your lawyer mentioned."
"Things that couldn’t have been bought with the 800,000 won he earns from part-time work, you mean?"
"...."
As expected.
That made it clear.
This case was a scheme by the prosecutor and the criminals targeting Sim Oh-han.
"How did you come to know Sim Oh-han?"
"...As far as I remember, an acquaintance I knew recommended him after seeing his work."
"How did that acquaintance get Sim Oh-han’s contact information after seeing the work?"
"He had Sim Oh-han’s business card."
"His business card? When was that?"
"I don't remember."
"Before the Suryeon Gallery piece went up?"
"I think so."
"So you went to the Suryeon Gallery after seeing that work because you wanted to see more of Sim Oh-han’s art."
"I don't remember."
"What kind of work was it that your acquaintance said they had seen?"
"A pencil sketch."
"A pencil sketch?"
"Yes."
"And that alone was enough for you to contact Sim Oh-han and go all the way to the Suryeon Gallery."
Jeon Jae-hyun drew a breath.
"Yes. It was a pencil sketch, but the drawing was exceptionally elegant."
"Then, after seeing the actual bill hanging on the wall of Mr. Heo’s restaurant, you decided to contact Sim Oh-han, came to the Suryeon Gallery to check his skill, and handed him banknote paper to commission Art of Money 2."
"...!"
Did he think I wouldn’t know what that drawing really was?
I and Sim Oh-han had spent a long time digging through whether his work had ever been exhibited elsewhere, and in the end, we found it in an unexpected place.
The study that wasn’t in the sketch notebook. The very study that had started this whole case.
"Judge, I would like to submit a photograph of Sim Oh-han’s sketch hanging on the wall of Mr. Heo’s 5,990-won Pasta, Jongno branch, as evidence as well."
Prosecutor Han rose from his seat.
"I object. The defense has not submitted an evidence-explanation document."
"Judge, the defendants in this case, Jeon Jae-hyun and Min Yi-young, have not said a single word about this, and Sim Oh-han himself was unaware of it. Please understand that this made it difficult to locate the work."
The judge asked, "Counsel Cha Do-hyuk, when did you learn this?"
"Just the day before yesterday, during a consultation with Sim Oh-han, when he mentioned a work he had exhibited himself. And I was able to confirm it at Mr. Heo’s Pasta, Jongno branch, before closing on October 12."
"I’ll verify it."
"Thank you. Judge, may I question defendant Jeon Jae-hyun again?"
"Granted."
I turned and looked at Jeon Jae-hyun.
There was a trace of fear in his eyes.
"By the way, Mr. Jeon Jae-hyun, why didn’t you mention the motive for meeting Sim Oh-han in the first trial?"
"...."
"Ten years ago, you committed the same kind of crime. Am I correct?"
"...Yes."
"And back then, during the process of splitting the proceeds, you fell out with Jo Jeong-hoon, the plate worker who was on your team, didn't you?"
"No."
"So after seeing Sim Oh-han’s ability, you decided to turn him into a criminal too? Otherwise, there’d be no reason to conceal how you deliberately came into contact with him."
"I object! That’s speculation unrelated to the evidence at hand."
"Counsel Cha Do-hyuk, watch your tone."
It wasn’t even a question worth considering.
But I needed to make it obvious that their little scheme had been seen through.
I asked a few more questions, but Jeon Jae-hyun stuck to the same answer: "I don't remember."
In a situation like this, taking the Fifth would actually be worse.
I glanced at the defense counsel for a moment.
They seemed to be doing nothing more than watching to see whether the defendant would say anything coherent, with no intention of actually defending him.
Well, if the one objecting is the prosecutor, then that says plenty. Besides, the defendant and the man who handed over the paper are probably entangled with the investigating prosecutor.
Judging from the paper’s special characteristics, this was probably tied to someone very powerful indeed.
The prosecutor hadn’t pressed that point, and I had no intention of provoking it either.
One wrong move, and this could spread as far as my mother’s case had.
More than anything else, though...
If Sim Oh-han is found not guilty, my job as his lawyer will be done. What matters now is raising my ability as fast as I can so I can deal with my mother’s case.
"That’s all."
After finishing my examination, I sat down.
Once the other lawyers had finished their questions, the judge set the next hearing date.
After the first hearing ended, I filed a written submission with the court, organizing the witness-examination points in chronological order based on what I had learned from the restaurant owner.
October 20.
The second hearing.
The owner of Mr. Heo’s restaurant came forward as a witness.
"Counsel, proceed with your examination."
First, I thanked him for agreeing to appear as a witness during the busiest lunch rush on a weekday.
"When did you first see Sim Oh-han?"
"I don't remember the exact date, but it was early last winter, at night."
"At night? So you remember the time of day?"
"Yes. It was the last order, but it was also the kind of situation you just can’t forget."
"Could you tell us what happened?"
The restaurant owner, who had no business being in a courtroom unless there was a special reason, steadied his breathing.
"Sim Oh-han—let’s just call him that man—came into the restaurant and ordered carbonara pasta with no extra toppings. Our place may be a 5,990-won restaurant, but we make our living on extra toppings, so I was sensitive about that. And it was the last order, too."
"And then?"
"The chef wanted to cancel the order, but the man was shivering in the cold with nothing on but a thin windbreaker, and he looked exactly like my own kid’s age. So I gave him a little extra cheese and pasta."
To quietly do something kind because he was worried about hurting a young man’s feelings—that was not someone you met often in this day and age.
"But after he finished eating, he dug through his bag to pay and found only five crumpled 1,000-won bills."
He was 990 won short.
It was one of those awkward amounts—only 10 won more and it would have been 1,000, too little to make a fuss over and too much to just let go.
"I was angry, but what could I do? He didn’t have the money. So I told him not to worry about it and to come back another time. But then he took out a black notebook, flipped through it, and handed me a sheet of paper and a business card."
He said it was a sheet narrower and longer than A5 paper.
"Why did Sim Oh-han give you that? I’m having trouble following. What was on the paper?"
"One dollar."
The owner held up his index finger straight and tall.
"It was a pencil drawing of a one-dollar bill. It looked as if someone had printed the bill itself right there on the paper. It was such a brilliant piece that I couldn’t possibly forget Sim Oh-han."
As the audience began murmuring, the judge told everyone to keep quiet.
"Where did you put the drawing after you got it?"
"I stuck it on the wall beside the counter in my restaurant."
"Then everyone who visits the restaurant can see it, I take it?"
He nodded.
"They absolutely have to see it."
"In that case, was there anyone who asked who drew it after seeing the picture?"
"Yes. There were even people who asked me for his contact information. The two defendants sitting over there at the defendant’s bench were also among the people who asked."
That was the critical blow.