Former Gao City Speaker Zeng Liyan was involved in fraud of tens of millions of assistant fees. The second trial lasted for 12 years. The Supreme Court remanded the case for further trial.

Zeng Liyan, the former speaker of the Kaohsiung City Council and current council member of the Kuomintang, was accused of fraudulently claiming NT$10.53 million in assistant fees. The Kaohsiung Branch of the Second Instance High Court sentenced Zeng to 12 years in prison and deprived her of public rights for six years in August last year. After appeal, the Supreme Court now believes that the amount of fraudulent claims has yet to be clarified, and the entire case was dismissed and sent back to the Kaohsiung High Court for further trial.

The Supreme Court pointed out that there were still doubts about whether the capitation assistant actually performed assistant work and whether the amount should be deducted from the low salary and high report found in the second instance. The original investigation was not exhaustive, so it revoked the remand and let the first instance conduct another investigation to clarify.

Zeng Liyan was still in court proceedings due to her involvement in fraudulently claiming assistant fees. She was not nominated by the Kuomintang for the Kaohsiung City Council election in the 2026 nine-in-one general election. Zeng Liyan ultimately did not register to run for re-election.

The second-instance judgment pointed out that from December 2010 to March 2021, Zeng Liyan successively instructed her assistant Cao Xuezhen and her sister Zeng Lihong, who co-organized the business of claiming public assistant subsidies, to fraudulently collect a total of 10.53 million yuan in assistant fees in 10 years by using methods such as false headcount, low salary and high report.

The Kaohsiung District Court of first instance found that Zeng Liyan was guilty of three crimes of public servants taking advantage of their positions to fraudulently obtain property. The three crimes were combined and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Zeng Lihong was sentenced to 3 and a half years in prison, and Cao Xuezhen was sentenced to 2 years and 2 months in prison with an optional fine of 3 months. Each of the three were deprived of public rights for 2 to 6 years.

In the second instance, the Kaohsiung High Branch Court sentenced Zeng Liyan to three crimes, including taking advantage of her position to fraudulently obtain property. She was sentenced to 9 years, 10 years, and 9 years in prison respectively. The combined sentence shall be 12 years in prison, deprivation of public rights for 6 years, and confiscation of illegal gains of 10.536474 yuan. The accomplice Zeng Lihong was sentenced to 4 years and 4 months in prison for the two crimes and was deprived of public rights for 3 years. Cao Xuezhen was sentenced to 2 years and September in prison for the three crimes and was deprived of public rights for 2 years.

All three defendants appealed, and the Supreme Court today partially quashed the guilty verdicts of the three people and sent them back to the Kaohsiung High Court for further trial.