A major turning point occurred in the 5-hour trial of the Ke Wenzhe case! Following in the footsteps of her brother Li Wenzong, Li Wenjuan pleads guilty

Former Taipei Mayor Ko Wenzhe was sentenced to 17 years in prison in the first instance for his involvement in Beijing City and political donation cases and appealed. The High Court today summoned Li Wenzong, the former chairman of the Zhongwang Foundation, and Li Wenjuan, the former head of Muke Public Relations Company. Li Wenzong pleaded guilty to breach of trust earlier in the court session regarding the payment of 8 million yuan in salary to People’s Party employees by the Zhongwang Foundation. Unexpectedly, when the judge asked Li Wenjuan in the evening, she also pleaded guilty. Lawyer Li Wenjuan said that he did not want to waste judicial resources, so he pleaded guilty to the parts for which Li Wenjuan was found guilty in the first trial, including the crime of public welfare embezzlement and the commercial accounting law.

During his term of office, Ke Wenzhe and his old classmate Li Wenzong jointly used Muke Company and the People's Party political donation account to misappropriate more than 61.34 million yuan in the "Ke Wenzhe and President and Vice President Wu Xinying's political donation account" and misappropriated 8.27 million yuan of public funds from the Zhongwang Foundation to pay the salaries of campaign headquarters employees.

In the first instance of the political donation case, the Taipei District Court sentenced Ke Wenzhe to two years and three years and six months in prison for two counts of public welfare embezzlement. In the Zhongwang Foundation case, it was found that Ke Wenzhe and Li Wenzong were jointly guilty of breach of trust, and Ke was sentenced to two years and six months in prison. In addition to the crime of accepting bribes in violation of his duties in the Jinghua City case, Ke Wenzhe was sentenced to a total of 17 years in prison. Li Wenzong was sentenced to 4 years and June for public welfare embezzlement and breach of trust; Li Wenjuan was sentenced to 2 years and April for public welfare embezzlement and violation of commercial accounting laws; accountant Duan Muzheng was sentenced to 1 year in prison for forging documents.

After the case was appealed, the High Court held a hearing today. The hearing lasted nearly five hours from 2:30 pm to 7:21 pm. Judge Lu Ningli was ordered in the court to confirm the evidence one by one. Li Wenjuan, Li Wenzong and others and their lawyers also provided additional explanations.

Li Wenzong's defense lawyer stated in court that Li Wenzong still denied the crime and advocated innocence for the crime of public welfare misappropriation, but changed his plea to guilty for breach of trust and admitted that he had misappropriated funds from the Zhongwang Foundation to pay the salaries of four employees, including Xu Zhiyu of "Orange", as well as Gu Min, Lin Baochun, Huang Xinxiang and others.

As for Li Wenjuan, the defense lawyer made the main statement in court. Her lawyer pointed out that in order to avoid wasting judicial resources, Li Wenjuan decided to plead guilty to all relevant crimes.

The prosecutor affirmed Li Wenjuan's confession in court, but further inquired about the scope of her confession to confirm whether she was only pleading guilty to the crime or whether she would no longer dispute the criminal facts found in the first instance.

In this regard, Li Wenjuan's defense lawyer explained that Li Wenjuan pleaded guilty to all the crimes found guilty in the first instance judgment, including the crime of public welfare embezzlement and violation of the "Commercial Accounting Law", and no longer disputes.