Banciao District prosecutors yesterday indicted 24 people accused of involvement in a professional baseball match-fixing scandal, including former La New Bears pitcher Chang Chih-chia (張誌家), Brother Elephants player Chen Chih-yuan (陳致遠) and Tainan County Council Speaker Wu Chien-bao (吳健保).
Prosecutors decided not to indict another 11 players, while 24 others were handed a deferred prosecution, which means they will be indicted if they are involved in any misconduct in the future.
Several players, including Chang and Chen, were charged with fraud and gambling. Prosecutors requested two-year prison sentences for the players allegedly involved in match-fixing, said Cheng Hsin-hung (鄭鑫宏), a spokesperson for the Banciao Prosecutors’ Office.
They said they did not request leniency in the indictments for Chang and Chen because the pair refused to admit to the charges against them, showed no remorse for the crimes they allegedly committed and did not cooperate with the investigation.
Chang had allegedly been persuaded by the “Windshield Wipers” criminal gang to throw games by accepting bribes in the form of expensive cars and cash.
Chen is suspected of taking NT$1 million (US$32,000) to cooperate in match-fixing in 2006.
Tsai Cheng-yi (蔡政宜) and other members of the gambling group that solicited players to throw games were also indicted along with the players.
Prosecutors requested lighter sentences for Tsai and others in the gang because they believe they did not threaten players to fix games. Members of the criminal gang were also very cooperative during the investigation process and provided valuable information and evidence, prosecutors said.
Although prosecutors believe that Elephants pitcher Tsao Chin-hui (曹錦輝) and Sinon Bulls Hsieh Chia-hsien (謝佳賢) also received “inappropriate benefits” from the Windshield Wipers, prosecutors did not indict them because there was insufficient evidence to back up the allegations.
Former Brother Elephants coach Shim Nakagomi was also accused of telling players to throw games, with prosecutors requesting a year-and-a-half jail term. He was arrested in November after prosecutors got wind of his plan to flee the country.
Prosecutors requested a nine-year prison sentence and fine of NT$50 million for Wu and alleged that the council speaker was involved in fraud and organized crime in connection with the match-fixing case.
Wu was mired in rumors that he had faked illness when he checked into the hospital just one day after receiving a court summons to appear for questioning last month.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
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