Central Motion Picture Corp (CMPC) former vice president Chuang Wan-chun (莊婉均) yesterday reported to prison for her embezzlement conviction, one week late and barely avoiding becoming a fugitive.
The Supreme Court last month upheld Chuang’s guilty verdict for embezzling NT$749.32 million (US$24.99 million) from the sale of CMPC.
She was sentenced to eight years and six months in prison.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The verdict is final and cannot be appealed.
Nine months of her sentence can be commuted into a fine.
After the court rejected Chuang’s appeals for a stay of sentence, she failed to report to prison on Wednesday last week, the court mandated date.
Chuang reported to prison yesterday, with the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on the verge of issuing an arrest warrant.
Chuang issued a statement through her attorneys, claiming her innocence and saying she did not break any laws or CMPC procedures during her tenure as company vice president.
The court could not confiscate NT$749.32 million from her savings as criminal proceeds, because she did not take any of the money she has been convicted of embezzling and the action did not cause any financial loss to CMPC, Chuang said.
“I am going to prison an innocent woman and I will be leaving prison an innocent woman,” she said.
She spent the week closing her businesses and arranging the retirement of her employees, Chuang said, adding that prosecutors refused to grant her extra time during her mother’s illness.
“I heard from the press about the prosecution’s intent to issue an arrest warrant,” Chuang said.
The court said then-CMPC president Alex Tsai (蔡正元) and other executives denied that Chuang was authorized to invest company funds.
Even had Tsai and others gave the instructions privately, they were illegal under the CMPC corporate charter, which required such decisions to be made by the board in a meeting, the court said.
Chuang became CMPC vice president in May 2006.
While Tsai was traveling abroad between then and September 2006, she used the company’s various seals to expropriate millions in funds from the corporation, using investment as a pretext, court documents said.
The prosecutors’ office pressed charges against Chuang in 2010.
The CMPC has been at the center of several allegations and high-profile political scandals.
Critics said that the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) sale of the corporation in 2013 enabled the party to evade responsibility for the acquisition of public assets during the authoritarian period.
Earlier this month, a source said that there was allegedly a recorded conversation of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) ordering the sale of CMPC at below market value.
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