Tsao Chin-hui, a professional baseball player formerly of the Brother Elephants team, was briefly detained and questioned yesterday in connection with a game-fixing case upon his return from the US.
Tsao was detained at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and escorted to court by airport police after customs officials alerted the Banchiao District Court that he had returned from Los Angeles.
At the court, he was questioned briefly as a witness by Li Chin-fu, one of the judges in a game-fixing case involving 24 former Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) players.
The judge said Tsao was listed as a witness in the case, but had failed to show up in court despite being subpoenaed twice. Li dismissed as unacceptable Tsao’s excuse that he was in the US at the time of the hearings. The judge said Tsao did not seek the court’s permission to be absent from the hearings, which is the proper legal procedure.
According to the law, witnesses who fail to show up for court hearings without good reason risk a fine of up to NT$30,000 (US$936) and will be brought to court by police.
The judge questioned Tsao about some of the evidence found by investigators in a search of Tsao’s residence earlier this year during the probe into the game-fixing scandal.
Before releasing Tsao, the judge warned him that although he has already been cleared by prosecutors of any involvement in the case, he could come under investigation again if new evidence against him turns up.
The game-fixing scandal erupted last October, with 24 baseball players charged with throwing games in league with bookmakers.
Tsao, who played for the Colorado Rockies in the US Major League in 1999 and for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2007, signed up with the Brother Elephants in 2008. He was the first Taiwanese major leaguer to play in the CPBL.
Although Tsao was not implicated in the CPBL game-fixing scandal, Brother Elephants fired him on the grounds that he had had contact with a bookmaker who was charged as the mastermind behind the whole scheme.
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