The Taipei District Court today sentenced a former Taipei city councilor and her assistant on charges of fraud and corruption for embezzling public funds.
Former Taipei city councilor Lin Ying-meng (林穎孟) and her aide, Yeh Yao-chang (葉曜彰), were sentenced to three years and eight months and five years and eight months in prison respectively.
The ruling can be appealed.
Photo: Cheng Ming-hsiang, Taipei Times
In a Facebook post, Lin said that “not a dime went into my pocket,” adding that the judge ignored evidence and presumed her guilt instead of innocence.
Prosecutors said that Lin hired a part-time student surnamed Yang (楊) to work in the office between December 2018 and September 2019, but continued to claim them as an employee after that date.
Lin claimed NT$35,563 as a subsidy to pay the student’s salary and insurance until November 2019, prosecutors said.
Separately, prosecutors said that Lin also hired Yeh, her boyfriend at the time, as her publicly funded assistant.
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 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.
Kuo was in charge of graphic design, photography and producing content for Lin’s social media, for which Lin charged the city NT$231,656, they said.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office brought charges against Lin and Yeh in August 2022 under the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例) and Criminal Code.
Lin was elected in December 2018 as 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.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
The cosponsors of a new US sanctions package targeting Russia on Thursday briefed European allies and Ukraine on the legislation and said the legislation would also have a deterrent effect on China and curb its ambitions regarding Taiwan. The bill backed by US senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal calls for a 500 percent tariff on goods imported from countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports — targeting nations such as China and India, which account for about 70 percent of Russia’s energy trade, the bankroll of much of its war effort. Graham and Blumenthal told The Associated Press
INTEL: China’s ships are mapping strategic ocean floors, including near Guam, which could aid undersea cable targeting and have military applications, a report said China’s oceanographic survey and research ships are collecting data in the Indo-Pacific region — possibly to aid submarine navigation, detect or map undersea cables, and lay naval mines — activities that could have military applications in a conflict with Taiwan or the US, a New York Times report said. The article, titled “China Surveys Seabeds Where Naval Rivals May One Day Clash,” was written by Chris Buckley and published on Thursday. Starboard Maritime Intelligence data revealed that Chinese research ships last year repeatedly scanned the ocean floor east of Taiwan’s maritime border, and about 400km east and west of Guam; “waters that
RSS