Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Tung Chung-yan (童仲彥) has been accused of fraud and forgery after he was alleged to have misappropriated NT$135,000 (US$4,045) from his stipend quota by exaggerating the number of assistants he employed.
Tung and his wife were released without bail by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office early yesterday morning following a lengthy questioning session.
Prosecutors and investigators on Tuesday took in 32 people — including Tung, his wife and his former and present assistants — for questioning after raiding Tung’s office and confiscating his assistants’ documents for investigation.
Prosecutors said that Tung was accused of having exaggerated the number of staff he employed from January 2011 to August 2014 to appropriate funds from the NT$240,000 monthly quota granted to Taipei city councilors to hire assistants, adding that Tung ostensibly hired more than 20 assistants during this period.
The regulations governing salaries paid out by Taipei city councilors to their aides stipulate that each assistant should be paid no less than NT$20,000 and no more than NT$80,000 every month.
While prosecutors did not disclose the details of their investigation, a source from within the Taipei City Council said that Tung used NT$115,000 to pay his credit card bills and NT$20,000 to repay loans.
When asked to comment on the allegations, Tung said that he was innocent and that he would continue to cooperate with the investigation.
Asked what he had to say to his supporters, Tung said: “The fact that I was searched only shows how hard-working I am as a city councilor.”
Tung’s former office director, Chu Liu-che (朱柳哲), said that all of Tung’s assistants were summoned on Tuesday, and that he did not know of Tung’s alleged misappropriation.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Lee Hsin (李新) said that Tung likely “borrowed” bank accounts from his acquaintances whom Tung filed as his assistants and used them as proxies to appropriate the money, as it is unlikely that Tung could have come up with so many shell accounts.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), with whom Tung has a good rapport, refused to comment on the issue to reporters on his way out of a meeting with the city’s borough wardens, and Tung’s DPP colleagues also refused to comment.
Tung, 42, was a former reporter and talk show host at Formosa Television. He was first elected as Taipei city councilor in 2010.
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