Taichung prosecutors yesterday indicted former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and his wife on corruption and forgery charges following last month’s judicial probe into alleged fraudulent transactions and illegal acquisition of public land to build a NT$90 million (US$2.9 million) family mansion in the city.
Evidence gathered by Taichung prosecutors and the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau indicated that Yen forged documents and receipts to collect wages for an office assistant during his second term as a lawmaker from 2016 to 2020, the indictment read.
Investigators last month searched Yen’s mansion and offices. Yen and his wife, Chen Li-ling (陳麗淩), were summoned for questioning and released on bail of NT$10 million and NT$5 million respectively.
Photo: CNA
Prosecutors said that when he was a lawmaker, Yen hired Lin Chin-fu (林進福), the owner of a construction company affiliated to Yen’s family businesses, to work as a “legislative office assistant” and received NT$960,000 in wages from January 2018 to January 2020.
However, evidence showed that Lin spent most of that period in Taichung managing his business and did not work as an office assistant in Taipei, prosecutors said, adding that they have evidence of Yen personally collecting and using the assistant’s monthly wage.
The wage, in addition to filings for overtime work and other expenses, amounted to NT$1.08 million, prosecutors said.
They said that investigators had uncovered receipts showing that Lin had bought a Maserati sedan, registered under his company, which is under Yen’s possession for his family’s use.
The indictment pertaining to the mansion charged Yen and his wife with forgery, and his younger brother of illegally occupying public land and related offenses.
Prosecutors said that the sale of the mansion last year, when it came under scrutiny during Yen’s legislative by-election campaign, was fake as Yen had sold it at half of its market value to Taichung-based Jazz Space Design company owner, a woman surnamed Chang (張).
Prosecutors said that it was a fraudulent transaction, as Yen still has furniture at the mansion and family members were seen at the property.
Evidence also showed that Yen, his wife and Lin had forked out NT$45 million as a “loan” to Chang to help her with the “bogus purchase” of the mansion, prosecutors said.
Yen yesterday denied any wrongdoing, saying he had not broken the law and that he was being politically prosecuted to prevent him from running in next year’s legislative election. He has been nominated by the KMT in an attempt to regain his old seat in Taichung.
KMT Taichung City Chapter officials released a statement saying that as the litigation has not been settled, it would not affect the party’s nomination of Yen.
It urged people to vote for Yen and use their ballot to fight an “unjust” system.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and