Jo Young-nam

Jo Young-nam (born April 2, 1945), also known as Cho Youngnam, is a South Korean singer-songwriter, painter, writer, and television personality. He started his singing career in 1968.

More recently, he was known for his art fraud case, where he used an assistant to help with his paintings. He was found not guilty of fraud in the South Korean Supreme Court.

Music
Some of Young-nam's most popular songs include "Delilah" (1968), which was his first release, as well as "My Home Chungchong Province" and "Hwagae Marketplace." He has also recorded many well-known tracks, such as "Swallow," "Barley Field," and "Farewell to the City," to mention just a few. He has stated that the reason he feels he was not more successful was because he mainly did covers in the beginning of his career.

Painting
In 2016, Young-nam was charged with fraud for selling 21 paintings by two other painters to 17 people for 160 million won. He was declared not guilty by the Seoul Central District Court, but the court overturned the conviction, stating that the first court misunderstood the law. He was sentenced to 10 months in jail, but the case was appealed.

Young-Nam’s attorneys denied the charges by saying that most painters have assistants. In a second trial in 2018, the court ruled that using assistants in modern painting is not an area for the judgment of law and Jo Young Nam had no obligation to state that his assistants had painted the pictures, so he was found not guilty. The prosecution then took the case to the supreme court and again he was found not guilty on 2020.

Personal life
Jo married actress Youn Yuh-jung in 1974, but divorced in 1987. He married again a second time and divorced Paek Eun-Sil.