Chu plans to sue as police hunt for private eye

The controversy over the publication of a VCD that allegedly depicts a sexual encounter between the New Party's Chu Mei-feng (璩美鳳) and a married business tycoon, Tseng Chung-ming (曾仲銘), continued yesterday as Chu's lawyer confirmed that she will soon file a lawsuit against the tabloid Scoop Weekly (獨家報導).

Officials at the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office said yesterday that they were actively investigating the case and that police are hunting a suspect in the case who formerly worked at a detective agency.

At a press conference on Thurs-day, Chung Yung-sheng (鍾永盛), Chu's lawyer, said that the 36-year-old former director of Hsinchu City's Cultural Affairs Bureau was ready to file a lawsuit against the weekly magazine.

Although Shen Yeh (沈野), publisher of the magazine, later told the media after the press conference that Chu might not file a lawsuit, Chung yesterday assured the media that Chu would definitely sue the magazine for libel, among other damages, perhaps in a week or two.

"The publication of the VCD has seriously violated both the Criminal Code and the Civil Code," Chung said.

Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊), a lawyer and a New Party Taipei City councilor, came out in support of Chu yesterday by suing Shen's special assistant, Wei An (韋安), for libel.

Huang filed the libel suit after Wei publicly called Chu a "liar" on Tuesday after Huang had read one of Chu's statements.

In a statement, Chu wrote that Scoop Weekly had "sentenced her to death" with its unsubstantiated report and distribution of the VCD.

Meanwhile, the Taipei City Police Department revealed that they have targeted a suspect, who may be responsible for filming the bedroom scene with a pinhole camera -- and who has already made tens of millions of NT dollars by selling the VCDs across the nation.

As for the rumor that the whole case was orchestrated by one of Chu's female friends, surnamed Kuo (郭), the officials said that they would talk to Kuo in order to clarify her role.

Local newspapers yesterday reported that Kuo, an instructor at a religious healing group, was the one who betrayed Chu, and suggested that the instructor actually had more video footage of Chu.