A former reporter and her boyfriend were sentenced by the Taiwan High Court to one year and four months in jail for attempting to blackmail Hon Hai Precision Industry Co chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘).
The two are eligible to have their sentences halved to eight months each by the 2007 Sentence Commutation Act (罪犯減刑條例). Former Next Magazine reporter Tsang Chia-yi (臧家宜) and her boyfriend Huang Shang-ping (黃尚平) approached Gou in 2006 saying she would like to write a book about him and his company, the nation’s largest electronics parts maker.
Tsang proposed writing the book, which was to be called Burned by the Scorching Sun — What You Don’t Know About Terry Gou,and sent Gou an outline for review on Sept. 20, 2006.
However, after reading the outline, Gou said he was concerned about the content.
He said he was unhappy about Tsang’s plan to include details of alleged tax evasion in the US and China by Hon Hai, as well as other alleged illegal activity.
Gou told the court he asked Tsang to not write the book, but Tsang and Huang demanded that Gou pay her US$1 million (NT$32.6 million) in return.
Gou went to the police and arranged a meeting between Hon Hai representatives and Tsang to hand her the money.
Tsang was arrested when she collected the money from a bank’s safety deposit box after also signing a form pledging to keep the situation confidential.
In December 2007, the Taipei District Court convicted Tsang and Huang for blackmail and sentenced the former to one year and 10 months in prison and her boyfriend to two years.
They claimed that the money was for Gou’s purchase of the rights to the book. However, High Court judges dismissed the defendants’ claims and found Tsang and Huang guilty of damaging Gou’s reputation and that of his company.
The ruling is final and cannot be appealed.
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