Escape corruption! Councilor Lin Mingren’s overstatement of assistant fees for five consecutive years will be implemented for one year and may be fined

New Taipei City Councilor Lin Mingren of the Democratic Progressive Party was accused of using the names of relatives and inflating salary reports to overearn assistant fees of more than 6.81 million yuan. The New Taipei District Court found that the money was used to pay personal assistants and other personnel expenses. It was not used for personal use and did not constitute corruption. However, the declared information was untrue. Today, it was convicted of three crimes of making false statements to public servants. Each of them was sentenced to six months. The combined sentence should be one year. He was fined by Yike, but was not given a suspended sentence. Can be appealed.

Lin Mingren, who has been re-elected as a member of Parliament for 5 terms, was detained in September of the previous year due to an assistant expense case. In November of the same year, he was charged by the prosecutor under the Corruption Crime Ordinance and other crimes. After being transferred for trial, he was released on bail of 3 million yuan. The co-defendants include a niece surnamed Yang who is also an assistant and accountant, as well as her sister surnamed Lin and her uncle surnamed Jiang.

The prosecutor originally alleged that in order to subsidize his wife's uncle's living expenses, Lin Mingren falsely claimed Jiang Nan as an assistant from 2009 to 2016, claiming more than 2.67 million yuan; and from 2009 to 2018, he claimed more than 3.12 million yuan in the name of his sister to subsidize service office and voter service expenses. In addition, the actual monthly salary of 4 assistants ranging from 25,000 to 38,000 yuan was declared as 30,000 to 50,000 yuan, and the difference was recovered, resulting in a total of more than 6.81 million yuan in fraudulent payments. Four other assistants received deferred prosecution.

However, the court found that Jiang Nan served as an assistant in September 2009 and resigned within a month; Lin's sister served from September 2009 to December 2010. Although Lin knew that the two people and some assistants had resigned, he still instructed Ms. Yang, who was in charge of accounting, to fill in the false employment list and change information, and also exaggerated the salaries of some assistants. After signing her signature, she sent it to the parliament for payment.

The crime spanned one term as a Taipei County council member and two terms as a New Taipei City council member, with a total overpayment of more than 6.81 million yuan. After the money is remitted to each assistant's account, Jiang Nan will hand it over in full, or Yang Nu will withdraw it and recover the salary difference, and then coordinate the subsidy for the private assistant expenses.

After summoning witnesses, the court determined that Lin's expenditures on paying private assistants' salaries and subsidizing publicly funded assistants during his three terms amounted to 1.57 million yuan, more than 3.8 million yuan, and more than 2.86 million yuan respectively, which exceeded the overpayment amount for each term. The relevant assistants were indeed engaged in official duties as a member of parliament.

The collegial panel pointed out that the subsidy for publicly funded assistants is not the actual salary of the members, but the overflow of the money in this case was used for personnel expenses related to the duties of the members. It is difficult to see that there was any illegal intention, and therefore it did not constitute corruption. The corruption part of the prosecution's prosecution is related to the previous crime of publishing false accusations, and does not constitute a declaration of innocence.

The court considered that Lin Mingren made false declarations for the sake of convenience. The crime spanned three terms and lasted for a long time. He was in a dominant position in decision-making. He was sentenced to one year in prison without a suspended sentence. Yang, Lin and Jiang were sentenced to eight months, four months and six months respectively. They were all fined by Yike and given probation for three years, two years and two years. They must pay 150,000 yuan, 60,000 yuan and 120,000 yuan respectively to the public treasury within one year after the judgment is finalized.