Former Pacific Electric Wire and Cable (PEWC) chairman Jack Sun (孫道存), 68, yesterday began his three-year prison term, after the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office rejected his appeal to defer the start of his sentence.
Former PEWC chief financial officer Hu Hung-chiu (胡洪九), 77, also started serving his prison sentence of 14 years and six months.
The two men were transported to Taipei Prison in the afternoon after reporting to the prosecutors’ office.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
The Supreme Court last month upheld the conviction against Sun and Hu for embezzlement and illegal transfer of about NT$20 billion (US$659.28 million at the current exchange rate) in PEWC funds starting in 1994 to hide the assets in dummy firms abroad.
Sun earlier this week applied for a deferment of his sentence, with his lawyers filing medical reports saying he has health problems that render him unsuitable for life in prison.
Taipei prosecutors held a hearing yesterday morning and rejected his appeal.
Former PEWC chairman Tung Ching-yun (仝清筠) and his former secretary, Huang Ching-lin (黃靜琳), who were convicted as accomplices in the financial scandal, also began serving their sentences of 18 months and nine months respectively.
Both were reduced terms from an earlier ruling.
Former PEWC vice chairman and general manager Mu Chu-yi (繆竹怡), who received a four-year and four-month term in last month’s ruling, fled the country after the judiciary did not ban him from travel.
Taipei prosecutors said they have issued an arrest warrant for Mu.
If Mu does not comply, they will put him on a wanted list, prosecutors said.
Sun and Hu were found guilty of embezzlement, forgery and other offenses in contravention of the Securities and Exchange Act (證券交易法) and related financial regulations, as well as violating government restrictions on investments in China at the time.
Investigations revealed that Hu was responsible for a series of transactions using forged documents and seals to transfer company funds overseas.
They also found that Sun and Tung had known that fraudulent transactions were going on at the time and hid the theft of NT$20 billion from the company’s board.
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