Pingtung County Council Speaker Chou Tien-lun (周典論) yesterday was sentenced to three years and four months in prison for buying signatures for Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou’s (郭台銘) attempted presidential bid.
Following a retrial, the Kaohsiung branch of the High Court increased his sentence by two months, with an NT$1.5 million (US$47,740) fine and forfeiture of civil rights for five years.
He was sentenced under the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選罷法).
Photo: Yeh Yung-chien, Taipei Times
The case can be appealed.
In the first ruling on Aug. 27, 2024, the Pingtung District Court sentenced Chou to four years imprisonment, with an NT$5 million fine convertible to public service and ordered him to forfeit NT$4,930,200 in bribe money.
In a retrial on April 22 last year, following an appeal by prosecutors, the High Court’s Kaohsiung branch reduced his sentence to three years and two months with a NT$1.5 million fine.
However, the Supreme Court ruled that the original judgement had unresolved factual issues and problems in the application of the law, returning the case to the High Court for retrial.
Chou allegedly provided NT$5 million to help Gou’s signature campaign to reach the threshold to run as a candidate in the 2024 presidential election, the court said.
It was found that Chou paid Chaojhou Township (潮州) Mayor Chou Pin-chuan (周品全) NT$1.5 million on Sept. 1, 2023, and NT$3.5 million on Sept. 18, 2023, to buy signatures, the Pingtung District Prosecutors’ Office said.
Prosecutors appealed the verdict, saying the sentence was too lenient. A panel decided that although the total bribes reached NT$5 million, the actual amount distributed to petition signatories was relatively low and had limited impact on the election, the High Court said.
The sentence was increased in the retrial, as the court found that Chou had instructed the Chaojhou Township mayor to use multilevel marketing, pyramid scheme-style methods to bribe signatories in exchange for petition signatures.
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