Former New Taipei City deputy mayor Hsu Chih-chien (許志堅) is to serve a 10-year prison sentence, after the Supreme Court yesterday upheld an earlier ruling finding him guilty of corruption.
It was the final verdict in the case and cannot be appealed.
The court also deprived Hsu of his civil rights for five years.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Hsu was a close aide to former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) for many years.
Investigators found that Hsu received bribes and gifts worth an estimated NT$7.58 million (US$245,554 at the current exchange rate) from May 2011 to July 2015 while deputy mayor.
Commentators have said that the case might have political ramifications, as Chu is a front-runner among the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential hopefuls for next year’s election.
The Taipei District Court in March 2017 found Hsu guilty of contravening the Business Entity Accounting Act (商業會計法) and Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例), handing down a 10-year sentence.
The Taiwan High Court in December 2017 upheld the ruling.
In 2011, Hsu was in charge of assessing, reviewing and approving real-estate projects as chairman of the city’s urban renewal project screening and urban planning committees.
Hsu took bribes from executives of Formosa 21 Construction, Hung Sheng Development and Le Young Construction in exchange for expediting approval of the companies’ projects, investigators found.
Hung Sheng Development owner Chou Li-hui (周麗惠) gave Hsu more than NT$6 million in cash, three luxury watches and two gold bars, as well as making regular payments to Hsu’s family members disguised as salaries, and dowry money for the marriage of Hsu’s daughter in 2014, prosecutors said.
Hsu also took bribes from Le Young president Tsou Hsueh-e (鄒雪娥), who acted as an intermediary for Formosa 21’s projects in Sindian District (新店), they said.
Tsou also bribed Hsu for approval for her company’s project to construct an 18-floor commercial and residential complex in Banciao District (板橋), investigators said.
The defense claimed that the items Hsu received were only mutual exchanges of gifts on special occasions between close families, but the Supreme Court said that prosecutors had found evidence of Hsu’s influence in the projects’ approval.
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