The Control Yuan wrapped up its investigation into the prison bribery scandal involving former Eastern Multimedia Group (EMG, 東森集團) chairman Gary Wang (王令麟) on Thursday, issuing a statement saying that it would impeach eight officials in the nation’s correctional facilities, including four high-ranking officials who had served as prison wardens.
Among those impeached were former Green Island Prison warden Su Ching-chun (蘇清俊), former Yilan Prison warden Wu Tsai-wei (吳載威), former Taichung Prison warden Chao Chun-chi (趙崇智) and former Taipei Prison warden Fang Tzu-chieh (方子傑).
Four other Taipei Prison officials were also impeached — former administrative secretary Ko Shu-yu (柯書宇), former staff officer Tsu Hsing-hua (祖興華), former section supervisor Chou Ping-jung (周秉榮) and former staff manager Chang Wen-fa (張文發).
When serving his second prison term in 2013 for fraud and other criminal convictions, Wang paid bribes and gave gifts to prison officials via his personal secretary Hu Hsiao-ching (胡曉菁).
That allegedly allowed Wang to act “like the big boss” of the prison, as he was given special privileges, access to facilities to conduct business meetings with EMG staff and granted extra weekly visits.
The resolution to impeach the eight officials was introduced by Control Yuan members Chiang Ming-chang (江明蒼), Fang Wan-fu (方萬富) and Lin Ya-feng (林雅鋒).
The statement said that the officials had committed serious violations of the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例) by receiving bribes, valuable gifts and hotel vouchers from Wang’s associates.
Although Fang was not indicted in a case brought by prosecutors, the Control Yuan investigation found that Fang granted Wang 38 extra visits by EMG staff and had also received gift packages from Hu on national holidays.
In related news, the Control Yuan reported that it investigated 15 cases last year and impeached 22 government officials.
The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications both had five officials impeached last year, according to the report, the highest among all the government ministries.
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