The Taiwan High Court’s Tainan branch yesterday sentenced former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Tainan County council speaker Wu Chien-bao (吳健保) in a final verdict to two years in prison by for fixing professional baseball games.
The ruling followed a similar sentence by the Tainan District Court.
Tainan prosecutors said Wu would soon be informed when he is expected to start serving his sentence.
Tainan prosecutors had indicted Wu and five Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) players on charges of fixing baseball games.
Five former Chinatrust Whales players — Tseng Han-chou (曾漢州), Cheng Chang-ming (鄭昌明), Chi Chun-lin (紀俊麟), Chen Chien-wei (陳健偉) and Huang Kwei-yu (黃貴裕) — were all found not guilty in yesterday’s ruling.
The ruling said there was insufficient evidence that the five players had engaged in match-fixing with Wu.
The ruling said that beginning in 2005, Wu ran an illegal gambling business that people would use to bet on professional baseball games.
The ruling added that Wu and three La New Bears players fixed a game when the team played the Chinatrust Whales in Kaohsiung on April 28, 2007, illegally profiting NT$8,650,000 (US$286,000) from the outcome of the game.
The three La New Bears players have been indicted in a separate case.
The KMT revoked Wu’s party membership in February last year following his indictment.
Wu is an independent Greater Tainan councilor.
Yangmingshan National Park authorities yesterday urged visitors to respect public spaces and obey the law after a couple was caught on a camera livestream having sex at the park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) earlier in the day. The Shilin Police Precinct in Taipei said it has identified a suspect and his vehicle registration number, and would summon him for questioning. The case would be handled in accordance with public indecency charges, it added. The couple entered the park at about 11pm on Thursday and began fooling around by 1am yesterday, the police said, adding that the two were unaware of the park’s all-day live
Fast food chain McDonald's is to raise prices by up to NT$5 on some products at its restaurants across Taiwan, starting on Wednesday next week, the company announced today. The prices of all extra value meals and sharing boxes are to increase by NT$5, while breakfast combos and creamy corn soup would go up by NT$3, the company said in a statement. The price of the main items of those meals, if ordered individually, would remain the same. Meanwhile, the price of a medium-sized lemon iced tea and hot cappuccino would rise by NT$3, extra dipping sauces for chicken nuggets would go up
Yangmingshan National Park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) nature area has gone viral after a park livestream camera observed a couple in the throes of intimate congress, which was broadcast live on YouTube, drawing large late-night crowds and sparking a backlash over noise, bright lights and disruption to wildlife habitat. The area’s livestream footage appeared to show a couple engaging in sexual activity on a picnic table in the park on Friday last week, with the uncensored footage streamed publicly online. The footage quickly spread across social media, prompting a tide of visitors to travel to the site to “check in” and recreate the
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not