Suspended Hsinchu mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) was yesterday sentenced to 10 months in prison for falsely accusing a US academic of defamation.
The Taipei District Court handed down the ruling yesterday morning. It can be appealed.
The accusation stems from Facebook posts made by in 2021 and 2022 by Chen Shih-fen (陳時奮), a political pundit and director of Western Washington University’s Center for International Business, who was writing under the pseudonym Tario Ong (翁達瑞).
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Chen said that Kao, in her doctoral thesis for the University of Cincinnati, used significant amounts of uncited content from two Institute for Information Industry studies that she had coauthored.
He also said that her academic adviser had removed her name from the roll and the university had removed her thesis from its database.
Saying the accusations were untrue, Kao sued Chen for aggravated defamation.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office did not pursue litigation, saying that Chen had correctly identified 18 areas in which Kao’s thesis closely resembled the two institute studies.
Chen later filed a countersuit accusing Kao of making false accusations against him.
He said that Kao returned to the university twice in August 2022 to revise her thesis and add the missing citations, then sued him for defamation the following month without informing the prosecutor of the changes.
Her actions showed she knew his accusations were true, but she still accused him of defamation, Chen said.
Kao’s lawyer said that before they filed the lawsuit, the university and institute said there was no issue with her thesis.
The institute later changed its mind, but it had nothing to do with the lawsuit and Kao did not intend to make a false accusation, the lawyer said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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