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.
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