Hubei judge sacked over hotel video with 'mistress'
Court dismisses magistrate for extramarital affair, after video circulates of him checking into budget hotel with mystery woman
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 10 December, 2013, 11:26am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 10 December, 2013, 4:37pm
Stephen Chen [email protected]
A screengrab of the video, posted on an internet forum, shows the judge entering a lift with a woman. Hours later, they were seen leaving the hotel separately. Photo: news.163.com
A senior judge in Hubei province was sacked on Tuesday after a video emerged online showing him entering and leaving a hotel with his alleged mistress.
A series of screencrabs taken from the video show the two at a budget hotel. Photos: news.163.com
Zhang Jun, who headed the third division of the provincial criminal court, was dismissed by Hubei’s high people’s court, which said he would be subjected to further investigation and “treatment”. It said Zhang had maintained a long-term affair with a woman.
The footage, dated October and taken from a budget hotel’s CCTV cameras, surfaced on large internet forums on Sunday, along with a post indicating Zhang’s name and workplace.
The nearly 18-minute video showed Zhang and the woman being joined by a woman in the lobby, where the woman checked in while he waited in the lounge, before taking the same lift. The pair were seen leaving the hotel separately more than two hours later.
The woman was said to be a lawyer at a major law firm.
The higher court earlier denied that Zhang Jun – who was a judge at Jianghan district court before being promoted to his latest position in 2011 – worked for the provincial judiciary, responding to state media inquiries by saying there was no judge in Hubei by that name.
It was unclear who leaked the video, which generated substantial responses from netizens, many of whom referenced other “sex scandals” involving judges. After generating buzz, the post and video were promptly removed from numerous websites.
In August, three judges in Shanghai were sacked for visiting a nightclub together and sleeping with prostitutes. They were also caught on tape and exposed online.
The scandals substantially damaged the reputation and credibility of mainland judges and deepened public anger at corruption in the legal system.
