The Supreme Court yesterday upheld a sentence of 39 years and two months that had been handed to Justin Lee (李宗瑞) for sexually assaulting nine women and filming the acts.
Lee, 33, had been previously sentenced in a separate trial to 20 years for sexually assaulting another five women and filming the acts.
The two sentences are to be combined, and Lee would have to serve a maximum of 30 years.
The Supreme Court ruling is final and cannot be appealed.
Described in the media as a playboy, Lee reportedly enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle.
Allegations against Lee began to emerge in 2012, after he was accused of surreptitiously placing sleeping pill powder into alcoholic drinks, to render his victims unconscious or in a weakened state.
Investigators said that he would then take them back to his residence and rape them. Some of the women involved included starlets and models.
Lee also filmed the acts at his home.
The tapes, which became known as “Justin Lee’s sex tapes,” were leaked and circulated online.
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.
In its ruling yesterday, the court said that Justin Lee’s encounters with the nine women occurred from 2010 to 2011, when he visited nightclubs at Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義), near Taipei City Hall and the Taipei 101 Building.
“[Justin] Lee violated the women’s rights to sexual autonomy, and his actions had caused mental anguish and trauma to the victims,” the court said.
“He had committed the crime numerous times and did not admit to his guilt when under investigation,” it added.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS