The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld the four-year sentence given to former New Party legislator Elmer Feng (馮滬祥) for the rape of his Filipina housekeeper in November 2003.
"The results of investigations by prosecutors and forensic scientists could not prove what Feng claimed, so the court decided to find him guilty and the four-year sentence will remain," the verdict read.
The verdict was referring to Feng's defense during the court hearing.
Two pairs of the maid's underwear became critical pieces of evidence in Feng's original trial. Prosecutors and forensic scientists discovered semen on the maid's underwear and the DNA matched Feng's.
Feng told judges that his former maid, identified only as Rose, had framed him by taking semen from a condom he had used when having intercourse with his wife and smearing it inside her underwear.
Immediately after the alleged rape, Feng paid Rose NT$800,000 (US$25,000) and sent her back to the Philippines.
The Taipei District Court originally sentenced Feng to four years in jail. Feng then appealed to the High Court. After the original verdict was upheld, Feng appealed to the Taiwan Supreme Court, where his defense presented a statement from forensic expert Henry Lee (
The Supreme Court then returned the case to the High Court for a new trial in which High Court judges yesterday decided to uphold his four-year sentence.
Feng can appeal again to the Supreme Court within 10 days of his receiving the verdict.
Yesterday's verdict added that the High Court had changed the date of the hearing four times at Feng's request, but he still failed to attend any of the rescheduled hearings.
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked