A member of a township council in eastern Hualien County was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in prison for raping a caregiver from Indonesia, in a verdict handed down by the Supreme Court.
The nation’s highest court rejected an appeal by Chen Chen-fu (陳振富), an elected representative in Fuli Township (富里) who in January last year received the same sentence from the Hualien District Court.
The district court handed down a relatively lengthy prison term as it found the defendant had not shown remorse for raping the woman twice in 2014, claiming that they had had consensual intercourse.
After the appeal, the case came before the Supreme Court, which ruled that the defendant continued to resort to sophistry in an attempt to avoid punishment, according to a court document released on Thursday.
The defendant had never asked for the victim’s forgiveness, the court said, adding that such a crime cannot be easily ignored.
The Supreme Court’s ruling is final and Chen will be stripped of his post as councilor on the first day of his jail term.
Chen was accused of raping his neighbor’s foreign caregiver while he was drunk in July 2014 and again four months later, after winning re-election, according to court documents.
The woman, a Muslim, said she could not report the offense to police after being raped in her employer’s home the first time because she was worried that she might herself be detained, as would be the case under Shariah law, according to police records.
She finally reported the crime after being assaulted a second time, records stated.
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