Former Keelung City Council speaker Huang Ching-tai (黃景泰) was on Friday found guilty of corruption, embezzlement of public funds and other charges, and was handed a 20-year jail sentence by the Keelung District Court.
The court found Huang guilty of violating the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例), involving bribery, influence peddling, accepting kickbacks and other unlawful activities.
Most of Huang’s illegal activities related to his involvement in real-estate development, including a luxury condominium complex by JSL Group (甲山林) near Badu (八堵) Railway Station and Unison Developing Co’s (國統開發) land revitalization and street expansion project of Keelung City’s Yuemei Road (月眉路) area.
The court also found Huang guilty of embezzling public funds from the city council, amounting to NT$91.46 million (US$2.79 million), through falsified receipts and forged accounting items.
Former Keelung City councilor Cheng Yi-hsin (鄭怡信) was found guilty and sentenced to one year in prison for colluding with Huang to disburse bribery money to several sitting councilors to win approval for the Yuemei Road development project.
Four other people, including a city council accounting officer and three businessmen, were also found guilty of involvement in Huang’s cases, and were given suspended sentences of 16 months and two years.
Huang, a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) council speaker from 2010 to last year, said after the court’s ruling that he would appeal the case.
Judicial officials yesterday said the Criminal Investigation Bureau and Ministry of Justice are monitoring Huang’s movements to prevent him from fleeing the nation to evade prosecution.
Taipei police official Kao Chen-ying (高振楹) was found guilty and handed a seven-and-a-half-year term for bribery related to another real-estate project involving Huang.
Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office spokesperson Chou Chih-yung (周啟勇) said that his office would appeal the ruling, as there were a number of unreasonable aspects, where several key figures, including Huang and Cheng, were found not guilty on a number of related charges, despite evidence of their involvement, including bribery and influence peddling.
Huang, 49, was the KMT’s nominated candidate for the Keelung mayoral race last year. However, news of his alleged corruption forced the party to withdraw his nomination. Huang then quit the KMT and ran an unsuccessful bid as an independent.
Huang was released in April this year following more than 200 days in detention after posting bail of NT$20 million.
Tropical storm Guchol is moving in a northeasterly direction off the east coast of the Philippines and will not hit Taiwan, but will impact local weather starting on Friday, the Central Weather Bureau said Thursday. The storm would bring a low-pressure system northward toward the vicinity of Taiwan, forecaster Chao Hung (趙竑) said. Northern Taiwan will see intermittent rain showers in the morning, and thunderstorms in the afternoon on Friday, he said, adding that rain would be heavier on the east coast and in the central-southern mountainous areas. Rainfall would continue into Saturday, and would spread throughout Taiwan proper, he
Exiled Chinese democracy advocate Wang Dan (王丹) yesterday denied an accusation by former Taiwanese political worker Lee Yuan-chun (李援軍) that Wang had sexually harassed him in a hotel room in New York nine years ago. There was a huge gap between Lee’s accusation and his own understanding and memory, Wang wrote on Facebook, adding it was hard for him to respond further regarding a “unilateral description” made by someone else. Wang made the remarks after his initial response on Facebook was met with criticism, with people saying he did not directly address the allegation. Lee on Friday wrote on Facebook that he
Chinese Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu’s (李尚福) focus on Taiwan at the Shangri-La Dialogue reflects Beijing’s concern over the increasing international focus on cross-strait issues, two Taiwanese experts said. In a speech at the annual security summit in Singapore on Sunday, Li said that the “Taiwan question” is a core interest and a Chinese internal affair that “brooks no interference from foreign forces.” Taking a thinly veiled jab at the US, Li complained about “countries” that raise tensions by repeatedly selling arms to Taiwan, providing it with military training and upgrading the level of official bilateral exchanges. Beijing would not tolerate “attempts
A man was arrested in Hsinchu on Saturday on suspicion of filming women in the women’s washroom of a shopping mall in the city, local Chinese-language media reported on Thursday. The man was arrested at around noon on Saturday when a woman using a stall in the mall’s washroom noticed a cellphone being held above her from the neighboring stall, reports said. The woman ran out of the washroom and yelled to her husband to help her, after which the suspect – who was dressed as a woman – attempted to flee, but was subdued by other men until police