Former DOH personnel head guilty of harassment

Former Department of Health (DOH) personnel department chief Tu Hau-lin (屠豪麟) was found guilty on Friday night for sexually harassing Cheng Ko-jung (鄭可榮), a restaurant proprietor, at a KTV parlor last year.

Taipei judges sentenced Tu to seven months in jail on the charge of sexual harassment but suspended the sentence for two years.

However, co-defendant Hsu Chun-ying (徐群瑛) was sentenced to nine months in jail on a slander charge.

After the sexual harassment was made public, Hsu accepted an interview request by a TTV reporter, claiming he is an acquaintance of former DOH head Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲) and a "witness" of the matter. However, prosecutors discovered that Hsu had nothing to do with the case and he does not know Twu, either.

Speaking on behalf of Tu, lawyer Tien Sung (田松) said that he appreciated the court's decision.

"This case is full of misunderstandings," Tien said.

"People who make mistakes should sincerely apologize and accept their punishment and people who were offended should try to forgive, let go and move on," he said.

The case was first made public on Oct. 3 last year, when Cheng held a press conference with the help of People First Party (PFP) Lawmaker Diane Lee (李慶安). Cheng and Lee accused Twu of kissing and licking Cheng's ear at a KTV parlor on Aug. 6.

Twu defended himself by confronting Cheng and Lee at the KTV parlor and filed a slander suit against them.

However, prosecutors discovered that Tu was actually the man who kissed and licked Cheng's ear at the KTV that night.

Twu actually had nothing to do with the case. As a result, on Oct. 5, Cheng and Lee held another press conference to apologize to Twu and said that they made a mistake to wrongly accuse Twu of sexual harassment.

According to Cheng, he was also drunk on that day so it was his fault that he mistook Twu for Tu in the dark.

In addition, he could not tell who "Tu" was because everybody at the scene just called the man "Mr. Tu." In Mandarin, the pronunciation for "Twu" and "Tu" is the same.

Twu did not withdraw the slander suit against Cheng and Lee but prosecutors decided not to prosecute them on March 28 this year.