Former Hsinchu City Bureau of Cultural Affairs chief Chu Mei-feng (
"I want to cut off all relations and connections between Tsai and myself from now on," Chu said before she entered a pretrial hearing regarding her sex-VCD scandal at the Taipei District Court yesterday.
"I don't care what other people might think of me. I don't want to sue him anymore. Let bygones be bygones."
According to Chung Yung-sheng (鍾永盛), Chu's lawyer, Chu arrived at his office on Tuesday afternoon and told him that she wanted to drop the charge against Tsai.
"I explained the costs and effects of the plan to her and asked her to think twice, but she insisted on going ahead," Chung said.
While Tsai will now be listed as a witness in the case instead of a defendant, Chu was less forgiving toward two other defendants in the case.
"I will never forgive Kuo Yu-ling (
Kuo was a friend and spiritual teacher of Chu. Kuo and Kao have both been charged with invasion of privacy along with Tsai.
However, Article 239 of the Criminal Code says that by dropping the charge against Tsai, the same charge against Kuo and Kao will be automatically dropped as well.
Invasion of privacy is a criminal charge but can be dropped at the request of the plaintiff.
However, prosecutors are pursuing charges against several defendants, including Kao and Kuo, for other offences against privacy, offending public morals and forging documents.
Kuo allegedly planted a hidden camera in Chu's Tamsui apartment last year with the help of Tsai, Chu's former lover, and recorded material of Chu having sex with a married man.
Kuo then, along with her daughter, allegedly sold the material to Scoop magazine, which released it on a VCD that was distributed in a December edition.
Senior Prosecutor Lin Jinn-tsun's (林錦村) indictment suggested a four-year sentence for Kuo; a two-year-and-two-month sentence for Scoop magazine President Shen Yeh (沈野); a one-year-and-four-month sentence for his daughter, Shen Jung (沈嶸), who is also the publisher for the magazine; and a one-year-and-10-month sentence for Shen Yeh's assistant, Wei An (韋安).
Without suggesting sentences, the indictment also names Kao; Scoop magazine employees Lin Jia-nan (
Chung-ti Technology was the company that produced and duplicated the VCD for the magazine.
Chung said that Chu's civil claim of NT$50 million from Kuo, Kao and Tsai would be dropped along with the invasion of privacy charges.
However, she is pursuing other claims for damages of NT$20.6 million from Kuo; NT$60 million from Shen Yeh, Shen Jung, Wei, Lin Jia-nan, Shao, Wang Hsu-yun and Wang Ya-wei, and NT$3 million from Hu.
A further pre-trial hearing is scheduled for today.
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