Independent Legislator Yen Ching-piao (顏清標) was yesterday sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison by the Taiwan High Court for spending millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money at hostess bars and KTV lounges.
Yen, who was sentenced for misusing public funds during his term as Taichung County Council speaker, also had his civil rights suspended for three years.
Independent Greater Taichung Council Speaker Chang Ching-tang (張清堂), who was Yen’s vice speaker in the previous Taichung County Council, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison, and three years’ suspension of his civil rights. Tsai Wen-hsiung (蔡文雄), Yen’s former secretary, received six-and-a-half years.
Yen and Chang said they would appeal to the Supreme Court.
In the ruling, the court said that Yen and Chang had returned NT$20.55 million (US$687,000) in misused public funds to state coffers. As a result, the court handed out reduced sentences.
Yen and Chang had been sentenced to 12 years in prison in a first trial.
The court found Yen, Chang and Tsai guilty of spending council funds between 1998 and 2000 to cover their expenditures at hostess bars and KTV lounges in -Taichung. According to the ruling, the trio used more than NT$20 million of council money and were still in debt to various hostess bars for about NT$10 million.
Yen, chairman of the Chenlan Temple, spent three-and-a-half years in Green Island’s maximum-security prison after a crackdown on organized crime in 1986. His participation in local politics began soon after he was released.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS