The lawyer for two defendants in the Chu Mei-feng (璩美鳳) sex-VCD case will be investigated over allegations he threatened witnesses, the Taipei District Court (台北地方法院) said yesterday.
Lee Ming-yu (李明諭) is defending Kuo Yu-ling (郭玉鈴), formerly Chu's spiritual teacher, and her daughter Kao Chun-chun (高淳淳) against charges they secretly filmed Chu having sex with her married lover last year and then sold the film to a magazine.
At a pre-trial hearing for the case on Friday night, Lai Shu-chen (賴淑珍) and Lin Shih-yun (林詩韻), who had worked with Kao at a dental clinic in Taipei City's Shihlin District last year, told Judge Hsu Shih-chen (徐世楨) that Lee asked them to say something good about Kao in court.
Lai and Lin said Kao had invited them to dinner on May 4 after they received summonses but had not told them that Lee would be there.
Lee told them he would like to "discuss all the possible questions that the judges, prosecutors or other lawyers might ask in court," they said.
The lawyer asked them to "say something good about Kao" in court and that he had a "good relationship with local mafia," they said.
After Lai and Lin completed their testimony on Friday, Senior Prosecutor Chang Hsi-huai (
"Lee's behavior has violated the Criminal Code (刑法) and the Attorney Regulation Law (律師法)," Chang said in court.
Lee told the court that there had been a misunderstanding. "I know how serious and dangerous this could be and I would not risk my career by doing this," he said.
"What I told them was that I will do my best to help. I also told them that it is not easy to be a defendant's lawyer and lawyers can be threatened by the mafia as well. That was what I said."
STAY AWAY: An official said people should avoid disturbing snakes, as most do not actively attack humans, but would react defensively if threatened Taitung County authorities yesterday urged the public to stay vigilant and avoid disturbing snakes in the wild, following five reported snakebite cases in the county so far this year. Taitung County Fire Department secretary Lin Chien-cheng (林建誠) said two of the cases were in Donghe Township (東河) and involved the Taiwan habus, one person was bit by a Chinese pit viper near the South Link Railway and the remaining two were caused by unidentified snakes. He advised residents near fields to be cautious of snakes hiding in shady indoor areas, especially when entering or leaving their homes at night. In case of a
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
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