A former aide to Parris Chang (張旭成) accused the DPP legislator yesterday of having an extra-marital affair with her earlier this year and of sexual harassment -- charges Chang denies.
Still, the allegations are likely to complicate Chang's candidacy as an overseas legislator-at-large in the year-end legislative elections.
PHOTO: CHU YO-PING, TAIPEI TIMES
Betty Wong (
PHOTO: SUNG CHIH-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Wong told the China Times Weekly (時報週刊) of her alleged relationship with Chang. According to the paper's report, published yesterday, Wong said Chang began to court her in early February when he asked her to solicit votes for him during the party's primary elections. On the night of Feb. 15, she was invited to Chang's home, where she "lost consciousness" for about four hours for reasons which she could not explain. When she regained consciousness, around 11pm, she found her "dress and underwear unzipped" but "didn't feel like I'd had sex with him."
Wong says she was "touched by Chang's hardworking character," and later voluntarily dated him and stayed at his home on several occasions, as he had promised her a job after the primary elections in April.
"This, I admit, was a big mistake on my part," Wong said yesterday at a press conference.
But later Chang began to distance himself from her, she said, and broke his promise to secure her a job. Meanwhile, she felt disturbed and insulted by roughly 20 anonymous letters, some of which threatened to expose her affair while others called her names.
Wong also said she received calls from several women who expressed their sympathy, but refused to identify themselves and told her that she was not the first woman to fall victim to Chang's womanizing.
"I started asking for help, but I didn't get any response from Chang or the DPP," Wong said yesterday, requesting that Chang make a public apology and resign from his post.
Chang, however, flatly denied Wong's accusation.
"There has been no such thing. It's out of the question that she could have lived at my house for two weeks. I don't know what she is thinking. Maybe she was expecting something to happen. She imagined all of this," he said yesterday morning at a brief press conference.
Chang did concede that Wong had been introduced to him to work as his part-time assistant.
"Wong is a paranoid woman, who is sometimes inconsistent about what she says," the legislator said.
Echoing Wong's accusations, former DPP Chairman Shih Ming-teh's (
"About ten years ago, Chang once sneaked into my bed in the university hotel when I visited him [at the university at which Chang then taught] in the United States," Arrigo told reporters yesterday, adding that she had no idea how Chang had got the key to her room, and that she had been very upset and rushed out of the room.
Arrigo added that a female executive director of an international organization had also privately informed her of similar misconduct by Chang.
The ruling DPP's central standing committee yesterday designated Lawrence Gao (
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS