The Taipei District Court yesterday handed a jail sentence of one year and two months and three years of probation to Chen Jia-guan (陳佳冠), a former clerk at the Administrative Enforcement Agency, who was charged with destroying official documents.
Chen was a clerk at the Ministry of Justice from 2007, but since last year had been on a special watch list because of poor performance.
The agency said Chen processed debt cases valued at less than NT$200,000, but failed to meet performance targets for eight consecutive months.
She had resorted to destroying official documents to meet performance targets.
Under pressure to close the cases assigned to her, she allegedly asked a substitute service draftee in the office to shred official documents that detailed debtors’ assets, effectively writing off debts that would otherwise have been payable to the national treasury.
Her actions went unnoticed until she took maternity leave last year.
While she was away, her deputy noticed that many official documents were missing.
District prosecutors on June 8 charged the former clerk with concealment and wrongful execution of official duties.
The court found that Chen committed the crime as a result of “faulty judgment.”
Because she actively cooperated with investigators by describing the details of her crime and showed remorse for her acts, the court passed down a relatively light sentence.
The sentence can be appealed.
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