MJP –
A city councilor from Taiwan has been handed a 6-year prison term for his role in stock manipulation and fraud involving a Taiwanese corporation.
Chen Cheng-chung, a 69-year-old former councilor of Taipei City, has reported to prison to start serving a 6-year term.
Two counts of deception in a business prospectus and stock manipulation led to Chen’s conviction.
After over 40 years on the job, Chen was finally removed from his position in July.
Despite the 10:30 am scheduled report time, he came to the Taiwan Taipei District Prosecutors Office on Tuesday approximately 90 minutes later.
Focus Taiwan reports that before his surrender to authorities for sentencing, Chen refrained from making any statements to the public.
A white polo shirt, a face mask, and a white cap were his attire.
After Chen’s unsuccessful appeal of a combined 6-year sentence handed down by the High Court, the Supreme Court last month reinstated his prison term.
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For his role in manipulating the shares of his property development company, Hongfu Construction, where he was a founder and major stakeholder, the High Court handed him a 4-year sentence.
For including inaccurate or misleading material in the company prospectus that Hongfu Construction submitted for their initial public offering (IPO), the court handed down an extra two years in prison to Chen.
Prosecutors should take precautions to ensure that Chen does not try to flee, the Supreme Court said in its final decision on Chen’s appeal.
Several offenses, such as fraud, breach of trust, misuse of company funds, and violations of the Securities and Exchange Act, were initially indicted against Chen by the Taipei District Prosecutors Office in 2001.
Over twenty years, beginning in 1993, Chen stood accused of embezzling as much as NT$6 billion (about USD 183 million) from Hongfu Construction.
He had been a councilor for Taipei City since 1985 and had served for a total of ten terms.
Chen was originally sentenced to 20 years in prison for his offenses in 2006 at his first trial before the Taipei District Court.
The High Court later lowered the sentence to nine years.
Since then, Chen has taken his case to appeals on many occasions, with mixed results in the subsequent retrials.
