First-instance judgment for Living Mall and other cases released, 391 pages, over 290,000 characters

The Taipei District Prosecutors Office on December 26, 2024, indicted 11 individuals, including Ko Wen-je, Chairman Shen Ching-ching of Weijing Group, former Taipei Deputy Mayor Peng Chen-sheng, former Director of the Department of Urban Development Huang Ching-mao, former Executive Secretary of the Urban Planning Commission Shao Hsiu-pei, Living Mall supervisor Chang Chih-cheng, Kuomintang Taipei City Councilor Ying Hsiao-wei, Ying's assistant Wu Shun-min, former Chairman of Taipei Metro Corporation Lee Wen-tsung, former Chairman of Muke Public Relations Company Lee Wen-chuan, and accountant Tuan Mu-cheng, on charges of violating the Anti-Corruption Act for accepting bribes in breach of duty, profiteering, embezzlement of public funds, and breach of trust.
According to the Taipei District Prosecutors Office's indictment, the entire case is divided into four major sections: "Living Mall illegal floor area ratio bonus case," "Political donation embezzlement case," "Breach of trust case for misappropriating funds from the Chungwang Foundation to pay campaign staff salaries," and "Ko Wen-je's political donation account false reporting case."
The Taipei District Court announced its verdict on March 26. For Ko Wen-je, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison and deprived of civil rights for 6 years for violating the Anti-Corruption Act by accepting bribes in breach of duty; sentenced to 2 years and 3 years 6 months respectively for embezzlement of public funds; and sentenced to 2 years 6 months for joint breach of trust. The four charges were merged for a total sentence of 17 years in prison and 6 years deprivation of civil rights.
The Taipei District Court today released the full judgment, which consists of 391 pages, with 273,312 characters and 294,183 characters excluding spaces.
The Taipei District Court uploaded the video recordings of the oral arguments and pronouncement of judgment for the Living Mall and Ko Wen-je political donation cases to the YouTube channel "Taipei District Court Criminal Division" for public broadcast at 10:00 AM on March 31. There are 16 videos, including oral arguments from December 15 last year to the first-instance judgment on March 26 this year. As of 1:00 PM today, the video of the judgment pronouncement has been viewed over 61,000 times. (Editor: Chen Ching-fang) 1150410