A Taipei city councilor and her former office assistant were yesterday indicted on suspicion of embezzling NT$267,219 of public funds.
Independent Taipei City Councilor Lin Ying-meng (林穎孟) and Yeh Yao-chang (葉曜彰) were charged with contravening the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例) and the Criminal Code, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said.
Lin was elected in December 2018 and is one of 12 councilors representing the city’s Daan (大安) and Wenshan (文山) districts. She was a member of the New Power Party from 2017 to 2020.
Photo: Cheng Ming-hsiang, Taipei Times
On Dec. 5, 2018, Lin hired Yeh as a publicly funded assistant and on Dec. 25 that year recruited a student surnamed Yang (楊) to work part-time at her office, prosecutors said.
Yang worked for Lin until Sept. 18, 2019, but Lin applied for a subsidy of NT$35,563 from the city to help cover Yang’s pay for October that year, prosecutors said.
There were more issues the following year after Yeh left his job in Lin’s office and started a public relations firm on March 31, 2020, prosecutors said.
Lin allegedly helped Yeh, who was her boyfriend at the time, forge documents to obtain city funds to pay the salary of an employee, surnamed Kuo (郭), at his firm starting in April 2020, prosecutors said.
Lin registered Kuo as her assistant and put her on the city’s payroll, defrauding the city of NT$231,656, prosecutors said.
Lin and Yeh have denied the allegations.
Lin told prosecutors that Yang had worked in her office until the end of October 2019 and that Kuo worked as an office assistant for her while also serving as her ex-boyfriend’s employee.
Regulations state that an elected councilor in any of the six special municipalities can hire up to eight assistants to conduct research on policy issues and provide services to constituents. They can be paid up to NT$80,000 per month in public funds.
SAFETY IN REGULATION: The proposal states that Chiayi should assess whether it is viable to establish such a district and draft rules to protect clients and sex workers The Chiayi City Council passed a motion yesterday to assess the viability of establishing a regulated red-light district. The council yesterday held its last session of the year, at which its fiscal 2024 budget was approved, along with 61 other proposals. The proposal to assess the viability of establishing a red-light district was put forward by independent Chiayi City Councilor Molly Yen (顏色不分藍綠支持性專區顏色田慎節). The proposal cited 2011 amendments to the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), which stipulate that city and county governments can pass autonomous regulations on the sex trade to manage the industry and guarantee industry workers’ rights. A ban on the
STABILITY AND CHANGE: Flagging in recent polls, Ko this week pledged to maintain President Tsai’s foreign policy, with an emphasis on improving China relations Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday reiterated that he is “deep-green at heart” in response to accusations that he is pivoting his campaign to align closer with the ideology of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the face of flagging polls. Ko made the remark at an agricultural policy conference in Taipei, repeating his comments from an interview with CTS News a day earlier. Ko told the CTS host that he would continue to pursue President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) national defense and foreign policy in general, but with an emphasis on establishing a rapport with
CHINA illness surge: Of 88 travelers from China, Hong Kong and Macau with respiratory symptoms who were encouraged to get tested upon arrival, 70.6% had the flu Two hundred and sixty people with COVID-19 were hospitalized and 31 deaths related to the virus were reported last week — the highest numbers in four weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that cases are expected to peak next month. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said that of the 260 people hospitalized last week with moderate to severe COVID-19, 98 percent had not received the Omicron XBB.1.5-adapted COVID-19 vaccine. Among the people hospitalized this year, 78 percent were aged 65 or older, while most of the those who were hospitalized or died have or had
Taiwanese who have recently traveled to China for tourism, to visit friends or relatives or for business reasons have been interrogated, detained and faced other forms of unreasonable treatment from Chinese officials, a source said on Sunday. Among them was a Taiwanese who was detained for eight hours at an airport in China due to their research, which is related to religion, while others have had their travel documents for China canceled for a number of reasons, the source said. In July, China expanded the scope of its counterespionage law, and recently announced a draft amendment to the law on the protection