Prosecutors are to reopen an investigation into a McDonald’s supervisor accused of sexually assaulting a former employee, who later died of suicide, the High Prosecutors’ Office said today.
The supervisor, surnamed Lee (李), denies all wrongdoing and said the acts were consensual and he never forced her against her will.
The employee was 16 years old when she began working part-time at a McDonald’s branch in Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) in August 2022.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Lee was accused of sexually assaulting and harassing her in employee changing rooms, the storage room and a stairwell, and allegedly assaulted her at her apartment after following her home.
The girl’s mother said that her daughter became too afraid to go to work and wanted to quit, but the manager refused to sign the paperwork.
She deliberately skipped shifts until she was dismissed, after which she filed a police report and a sexual harassment complaint with McDonald’s in March 2024, the mother said.
She ultimately took her life in November 2024.
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office has dropped the case twice due to insufficient evidence, in April last year and March.
After the girl’s family requested a review of the latest decision, the High Prosecutors’ Office today decided there were further facts that needed clarification and sent the case back to Shilin prosecutors for further investigation.
In her initial statement, the girl said that Lee abused his authority to sexually harass and assault her six times over the course of 11 months.
When summoned for questioning, the complainant altered her statement to say there were 10 incidents, with discrepancies found in the timing, location and description compared to her initial statement, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors then summoned her mother and two ex-boyfriends as witnesses, and although their statements matched her account, they were not first-hand witnesses to the events.
Messaging records between the girl and Lee showed frequent contact, but no content indicating sexual assault, prosecutors said.
While the girl also claimed that she had sought psychiatric treatment due to the alleged assault, a review of her medical records did not disclose any sexual assault incident, although she has been diagnosed with social anxiety, they said.
Prosecutors therefore decided not to pursue the case due to insufficient evidence.
McDonald’s said it had received the complaint in March 2024, and following an investigation, it found evidence of harassment and dismissed the supervisor.
The Taipei Department of Labor in December 2024 ordered McDonald’s to pay a fine of NT$1 million (US$31,635) for breaching gender equality laws, after determining that the firm failed to take effective corrective and remedial measures.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
Taiwan has activated backup communications for its northernmost territory, the remote and strategically located island of Dongyin (東引), after poor weather conditions apparently shifted the wreckage of a ship onto an undersea cable causing it to break. The vulnerability of undersea communication cables linking Taiwan with its outlying islands has been a persistent cause of concern for Taipei, whose government has on several occasions blamed Chinese ships for intentionally causing damage. Dongyin, home to about 1,500 people, sits in a strategic position at the top of the Taiwan Strait and the island has a heavy military presence. It does not have an
RSS