The Taiwan High Court yesterday sentenced 32-year-old socialite Justin Lee (李宗瑞) to 39 years and two months in jail for sexually assaulting nine women from 2009 to 2011.
The Taiwan High Court in 2014 convicted him of sexual assault, and of filming sex acts with 20 women without their consent. His lawyers appealed nine of the convictions to the Supreme Court, which had ordered the just-concluded retrial.
Lee reportedly used his wealthy family background to live an extravagant lifestyle, and was a regular at Taipei nightclubs.
Lee was in 2012 accused of using drugs and alcohol to intoxicate women in nightclubs, then taking them back to his home and raping them while unconscious, or filming sexual encounters without consent.
Investigators were said to have uncovered at least 30 female victims.
For the nine sexual assault convictions, the Taiwan High Court sentenced Lee to jail for terms ranging from four years and 10 months to five years and two months. Lee will have to serve at least 30 years in jail, in accordance with the Criminal Code.
Lee maintains that he is innocent and has said picking up women at nightclubs for consensual sex is a “normal aspect of Taipei’s nightclub culture.”
His father, Lee Yueh-tsang (李岳蒼), was a board member of Yuanta Financial Holding Co and a director at Yuanta Securities Co, but resigned after his son became embroiled in the scandal, with the sex tapes leaked and widely circulated online.
Seventeen women have filed civil lawsuits against Justin Lee. The Taiwan High Court ruled that he must pay them a total of NT$27.45 million (US$889,789) in compensation, which Lee’s legal team appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has ruled that he must pay NT$6.3 million to three of the victims, while verdicts on the other 14 cases are pending.
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