Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) was spared from having to serve 30 days behind bars after her boyfriend, Kaohsiung Deputy Mayor Lee Yung-te (李永得), secretly paid her NT$30,000 fine for slapping Chinese Nationality Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華).
“I was very surprised and touched when I found out [what Lee Yung-te did],” Chiu said yesterday when asked by the press for comments.
On April 22 last year, during a cross-strait negotiation briefing to the legislature, Chiu and Lee Ching-hua got into a shouting match after Lee Ching-hua asked Chiu not to interrupt him and to “show some manners.”
Chiu slapped Lee Ching-hua in the face after he challenged her to hit him and called her a “shrew.”
Lee Ching-hua later pressed charges against Chiu, accusing her of “insulting” him in public.
The Taipei District Court found Chiu guilty in the first trial, fining her NT$10,000, which could be converted to a work sentence. Chiu appealed, denying she had intended to insult Lee Ching-hua in public. She said she had simply “gently touched” Lee Ching hua’s face because he had called her a shrew.
In the second trial, the Taiwan High Court gave a final verdict, ruling that Chiu had insulted Lee Ching-hua by slapping his face in public. Chiu was given a choice of paying a NT$30,000 fine or serving 30 days in jail. At the time, Chiu said she would rather serve the jail sentence than pay the fine.
Lee Yung-te said he asked Chiu’s brother to help him pay the fine because he couldn’t bear to see Chiu in jail.
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