Six sentenced in sex-VCD scandal

The Taipei District Court yesterday sentenced six defendants in the Chu Mei-feng (璩美鳳) sex-VCD case.

According to Judge Hsu Shih-chen's (徐世楨) verdict, Kuo Yu-ling (郭玉鈴), a spiritual teacher who was also Chu's close friend, was sentenced to four years and eight months; Shen Jung (沈嶸), Scoop (獨家報導) magazine's publisher, was sentenced to two years and two months; Wei An (韋安), assistant to the magazine's president, Shen Yeh (沈野), was sentenced to two years and two months; magazine employee Lin Jia-nan (林家男) was sentenced to 10 months; another employee, Wang Hsu-yun (王緒筠), was sentenced to six months; and Hu Chung-lin (胡鍾琳), owner of Chung-ti Technology, was sentenced to six months and fined NT$30,000.

Chung-ti Technology was the company that produced and duplicated the VCD for Scoop.

Both Wang and Hu are allowed to pay NT$300 a day for each day of their sentence as an alternative to serving time in jail.

Lin's and Wang's sentences were suspended for a period of three years.

According to a senior judge at the Taipei District Court, Lin's and Wang's sentences will be automatically dropped when the three-year probation period passes if they don't commit any other crime during the period.

"Kuo received the longest jail time because she never regretted what she did, even though she admitted she was the mastermind" behind the case, said Liu Shou-sung (劉壽嵩), spokesman for the Taipei District Court. "In addition, she still refuses to tell us where the master tape is. It's still a mystery."

Liu also said the court believed the magazine was "selling the private lives of others for profit" by giving away the sex-VCD instead of appending the disc as a "news reference."

"Rumors said the magazine bought the master copy of the VCD from Kuo. But we do not have any evidence of that," Liu added. "But the court believed that the magazine was invading Chu's privacy and selling the magazine along with the VCD for profit."

Chu is currently out of the country and did not make any comment. The magazine didn't respond, either. But Kuo said she will definitely appeal.

In the meantime, a civil claim in this case is still pending. In this claim, Chu has asked for NT$20.6 million from Kuo; NT$60 million from the magazine and NT$3 million from Hu.

According to Taipei Chief Prosecutor Lin Jinn-tsun's (林錦村) indictment on Feb. 7, 11 people were listed as defendants in this case. They are Kuo, Kuo's 19-year-old daughter, Kao Chun-chun (高淳淳), the former Hsinchu City mayor Tsai Jen-chien (蔡仁堅), Shen Yeh, Shen Jung, Wei, the magazine's employees and the VCD producer, Hu.

Kuo was recommended for a four-year sentence; Tsai was recommended for one year; Shen Yeh was recommended for two years and two months; Shen Jung was recommended for one year and four months and Wei was recommended for one year and 10 months.

Initially, Chu also filed an invasion of privacy charge against Tsai, Kuo and Kao. But she decided to drop the charge against Tsai on June 26. According to the Article 239 of the Criminal Code (刑法), by dropping the charge against Tsai, the same charge against Kuo and Kao will automatically be dropped as well, even though Chu did not ask to drop her charge against them.

In the meantime, Kuo remains as a defendant for offenses against public morals and forging documents.

Invasion of privacy is a criminal charge but can be dropped at the request of the plaintiff, as the offense includes both private prosecution and public prosecution.