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.
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