In response to recent complaints by former first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) about the freezing of her family’s assets, prosecutors yesterday said that based on their calculations, the former first family still had about NT$60 million (US$1.9 million) in active assets.
The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) yesterday reported that the wife of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said the family had so little money in active accounts that she was even afraid to turn on the heater.
Wu said her daughter-in-law, Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚), had taken on so many freelance jobs teaching piano to increase the family’s income that she had hurt her fingers, the report said.
The wheelchair-bound Wu said the family’s monthly expenditure adds up to about NT$300,000 because of her medical expenses. The family also owes more than NT$5 million in legal fees to lawyers who are defending them in the corruption and money-laundering cases at the Taiwan High Court.
Chen Yun-nan (陳雲南), spokesperson for the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Panel, confirmed last week that the panel had frozen the bank accounts, stock holdings and real estate holdings of several members of the former president’s family.
However, prosecutors said that the money in the unfrozen accounts was enough to sustain Wu, her son Chen Chih-chung and Huang.
Prosecutors said the family had more than NT$5 million in active bank accounts that have not been frozen by prosecutors, as well as income in the form of rent collected from their properties, insurance compensation and monthly stipends from Chen Shui-bian’s payments as a former president. Prosecutors said the amount of money the family has access to totals about NT$60 million.
The only family member whose assets were not frozen was their daughter, Chen Hsing-yu (陳幸妤), because prosecutors said they had no evidence she had participated in the alleged money-laundering.
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