Investigators yesterday summoned an actress-turned-prison-counselor for questioning after she alleged that a judge, currently detained on graft charges, had sentenced a man to death following a failed bribe attempt.
Taiwan High Court Judge Chen Jung-ho (陳榮和) on Wednesday last week along with two other judges in a corruption scandal.
Angela Ying (應曉薇) last week alleged that Chen, working through a defense lawyer, had sought to extort NT$3 million (US$100,000) from a defendant in a murder case. However, because the defendant was not able to raise the money, Chen sentenced him to death.
Ying, who has counseled more than 300,000 inmates in groups or individually over 16 years, including dozens of detainees on death row, said the defendant had revealed the information to her in prison.
Ying would not name the defendant publicly, but said she was willing to provide investigators with details of the case in private.
Ying was questioned as a witness yesterday.
Chen and Taiwan High Court judges Lee Chun-ti (李春地) and Tsai Kuang-chih (蔡光治), as well as Banciao prosecutor Chiu Mao-jung (邱茂榮), were detained on suspicion of corruption when handling four charges against former KMT legislator Ho Chih-hui (何智輝), who once served as Miaoli County commissioner.
They are suspected of taking or facilitating bribes offered by Ho in return for overturning a lower court’s guilty verdict in a corruption case stemming from his time as a legislator. Sentenced in 2006 to 19 years in prison for receiving kickbacks during the development phase of the Tongluo expansion of Hsinchu Science Park in Miaoli County, Ho in May saw his sentence overturned by the Taiwan High Court.
Judicial Yuan president Lai In-jaw (賴英照) and Taiwan High Court chief justice Huang Shui-tong (黃水通) resigned on Sunday to take responsibility for the scandal.
In a statement, the Judges Association of the ROC (Taiwan) yesterday called on President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to help the Judicial Yuan enact a judges’ law, which could help weed out unqualified judges.
Meanwhile, investigators are still searching for Ho, who is believed to be in Miaoli County.
Ho fled from his residence in Miaoli County just before investigators reached his house early on Tuesday last week and has not been seen since.
Prosecutors have placed Ho on the wanted list.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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