The Taichung branch of the High Court on Thursday upheld earlier corruption convictions against former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Nantou County commissioner Lee Chao-ching (李朝卿), handing him cumulative sentences totaling nearly 450 years.
The retrial concerned 94 of 111 counts in which Lee is was found guilty of receiving kickbacks and embezzling funds from public projects.
The High Court cleared Lee on four counts, but upheld verdicts on the other 90, the court ruling showed.
Photo: Hsieh Chieh-yu, Taipei Times
Eighty-one of the sentences carry an average of five to six years in prison.
Lee served two terms as Nantou County commissioner from 2005 to 2012.
He abused his role as a public servant and did not conduct his work in good faith, the ruling said.
“Lee took advantage of many public tenders, procurements and construction projects” by “demanding kickbacks from contractors,” it said.
The kickbacks and embezzlement began in 2008 and involved Lee’s brother-in-law, Chien Jui-chi (簡瑞祺), who acted as an intermediary, with some construction bids being rigged to divert an extra 10 percent of the cost to Lee, the ruling said.
The majority of the cases were related to the reconstruction of bridges, roads, facilities and other public infrastructure in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot in 2009, which caused extensive damage in mountainous areas of central and southern Taiwan.
Lee and Chien have been in prison since August last year, following a High Court verdict on 17 of the cases.
An investigation alleged that Lee abused his authority by demanding 10 percent kickbacks or more from contractors involved in 111 public infrastructure projects, netting a personal benefit of NT$31.71 million (US$998,960 at the current exchange rate).
One such project, involving road and bridge reconstruction after the typhoon, had a budget of NT$94.6 million, from which Lee allegedly received NT$9.49 million from the construction company that secured the public tender, an investigation by public prosecutors showed.
The smallest alleged kickback was for a street sewer repair project in Puli Township (埔里), with a budget of NT$160,000, for which Lee received NT$16,000, prosecutors said.
The corruption investigation was one of the largest involving a local government head in the past decade, with contractors allegedly putting bundles of cash inside gift packs of tea and fruit.
Authorities reported finding several metal tea containers containing NT$30,000 each during a 2012 investigation.
Witnesses and evidence suggested that Chien would visit contractors to collect the kickbacks, which were packaged as gifts.
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