Taiwan socialite Justin Lee sentenced to 18 years and 6 months

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Taiwan socialite Justin Lee sentenced to 18 years and 6 months

Taiwan News, Staff Writer
2013-09-03 03:08 PM

On September 3 a Taipei District Court judge sentenced Justin Li to 18-1/2 years in prison following his conviction on charges of sexually assaulting and photographing 34 women. He was also ordered to pay NT$14.25 million in damages to 12 victims in the case. (Central News Agency)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Taipei District Court on Tuesday sentenced socialite Justin Lee to 18 years and six months for raping nine women and to three years and ten months for secretly filming 15 women, following accusations he had raped up to 34 victims.

The high-profile scandal erupted last year when two sisters filed a complaint against him, and a subsequent investigation found him having possibly drugged, raped and made recordings of about three dozen women, including prominent models and actresses. The 27-year-old, who is a son of Lee Yueh-tsang, a former board member of Yuanta Financial Holding Co., spent three weeks on the run before surrendering to police.

The court sentenced him also to pay compensation for a total of NT$14.25 million (US$478,000) to 12 women. Lee reportedly offered a total of NT$6.8 million (US$228,000), or NT$200,000 (US$6,700) to each of the 34 women. The victims, who were reportedly demanding a total of NT$75 million (US$2.5 million), were planning to appeal the sentence which attorneys described as too light.

Lee, who has spent the past year in detention, saw a release on bail immediately rejected Tuesday. His attorneys said they planned to appeal since he pleaded innocent. His sentence of three years and ten months and a further 40 days of detention for making threats could be converted into a fine of NT$2.84 million (US$95,000), reports said.

Prosecutors had requested a prison sentence of at least 30 years for the rapes of 34 women and because Lee showed no remorse, but judges said they could only confirm nine of the cases as rape and changed the charges from forcible rape to the lighter category amounting to intercourse with unconscious persons. The judges also said that forensic research had not turned up any drugs with several of the women, while many of them might have been unconscious after consuming alcohol.

Since 2009, Lee allegedly picked up women in Taipei nightclubs and led them to his home, often spiking drinks both at clubs and at his home with drugs. He would then rape the women and record the proceedings, which investigators found on his computer.

Some of the footage was leaked after the scandal became public last year, leading to prosecution of journalists and other suspects.