Chiayi County Commissioner Helen Chang (張花冠) was yesterday found guilty of leaking confidential information about a development project and handed a 22-month prison sentence in a Taiwan High Court ruling, but was not stripped of her position, as the sentence can be commuted to a fine.
In the second ruling on the case, the court’s Kaohsiung Branch convicted Chang of leaking confidential information to her sister, Chang Ying-chi (張瑛姬).
No appeal is permitted after the second ruling in cases involving leaking confidential information and the verdict is final.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsun, Taipei Times
The court acquitted Helen Chang from charges of corruption and receiving bribes in connection with the same project.
“I know I am innocent. However, I am still not satisfied with the commuted sentence on the charge of leaking confidential information,” she said after the verdict.
“I experienced political persecution by the judiciary during the era of Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] rule and even now, under the current Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] government. The pace of judicial reform is too slow. It is regrettable that I got saddled with this burden,” she added.
In the first ruling on the case in December 2015, the Kaohsiung District Court found Helen Chang guilty of leaking confidential information and handed her a two-and-a-half year prison sentence, while acquitting her from charges of corruption and receiving bribes.
Prosecutors brought 16 charges against Helen Chang for giving her sister the names of people appointed to a review committee for an industrial park development in Changhua County’s Dalin Township (大林).
The court yesterday said all the evidence indicated Helen Chang had not received bribe money and had not solicited bribes.
The court found that any bribe money had only reached Chang Ying-chi, it said in the ruling.
Regarding leaking of confidential information, the court said Chang Ying-chi had been hired as an office secretary to help Helen Chang with some of her work, because she, as a county commissioner, was overburdened with work and the county government failed to offer sufficient administrative help.
It was transfer of work that led Helen Chang to provide the review committee members’ names to her sister and it was not a deliberate act, the court said.
Prosecutors alleged that Helen Chang and her sister colluded with several review committee members and a contractor to win the public tender for the project, and that they received between 8 and 10 percent in kickbacks, for a total of about NT$7.82 million (US$258,069).
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