A female clerk surnamed Zhou at Nanyao Palace in Changhua City took advantage of official business to collect cash and embezzled about 5.19 million yuan without authorization.
(file photo)
[Reporter Chen Guanbei/Changhua Report] Nanyao Palace, a well-known Mazu Temple in Changhua, is a rare temple in Taiwan managed by a public office. A woman surnamed Zhou works as a clerk in the palace, responsible for keeping and handling all kinds of money, income, payment and storage. Unexpectedly, she Taking advantage of official business to collect cash, she embezzled about 5.19 million yuan without authorization. The Changhua District Court concluded that she was sentenced to 3 years and 10 months in prison for corruption, and the money was confiscated.
The Changhua City Office, the manager of the Nanyao Palace, demanded Zhou's return of the money afterwards, but the judge believed that the Changhua City Office was only the administrator of the temple, and the sesame oil money was not owned by the office, so the request for damages was rejected.
In this regard, Changhua Mayor Lin Shixian said that he will appeal again.
Nanyao Temple is a temple managed by the Changhua City Office. It is usually very popular with incense, but its sesame oil money is only used for temple maintenance, management and expenditure, and will not be used as other official budgets of the Changhua City Office. In 2021, Mayor Lin Shixian blew himself up. An employee of the palace guarded himself and was suspected of embezzling a huge amount of sesame oil money. After investigation, Zhou's daughter was prosecuted for the crime of embezzling public property according to the Corruption Crime Act. Zhou's daughter was released on bail of 200,000 yuan.
Please read on...
The verdict pointed out that Zhou Nu (57 years old) entered Nanyao Palace as an employee in 1984. In 2015, the Changhua City Office registered Zhou Nuna as a full-time employee in accordance with the Palace and Temple Management Law. Zhou Nu was usually responsible for opening the Nanyao Palace money box. A monthly salary of 50,000 yuan is paid for the signing of homework, the income from oil incense, the submission of gold medal booklets donated by believers, and the requisition of various items and equipment.
The verdict pointed out that after Ms. Zhou collected all kinds of money from the temple service desk staff every day, she should deposit the money into the temple special fund account that Changhua City Office applied for from the cooperative treasury within a week, and then make the Nanyao Palace various items at the beginning of the next month. Submit the report form for remittance of similar funds, together with bank information and receipts, etc., to the temple clerk surnamed Huang who is in charge of checking various incomes of the temple.
However, Ms. Zhou knew that Ms. Huang was busy with business. She might only check the bills, deposit slips, and the payment report form for errors. Misappropriation of the difference or the full amount of donations from believers. From February 2017 to November 2020, the accumulative embezzlement amounted to more than 5.19 million yuan and 1,000 yuan. Later, an internal spot check in the temple room of the Changhua City Office found that the cash sent by the people to Nanyao Palace had been opened A receipt was issued but not included in the public treasury. Seeing that her deeds had been exposed, Ms. Zhou took the initiative to report the crime to the Central Region Investigation Team of the ICAC.
It is understood that Ms. Zhou has worked in Nanyao Palace for 38 years. In 2020, the public office found that the accounts were incorrect, and even the accounts from 5 years ago were missing. The mayor Lin Shixian was furious and sent the case to the Political Office for investigation. And voluntarily transferred to the Changhua District Prosecutor's Investigation Office, and also filed a civil claim afterwards, demanding that Zhou's daughter return the embezzled money of 5,195,943 yuan.
Ms. Zhou confessed to the crime, and also argued that the current monthly income is only 25,000 yuan, but renting a house, her son is underage, her husband has a stroke, etc., and she has to bear the expenses of the family. If she is locked up, she will not be able to repay the loan. Ms. Zhou still has savings, but she has no sincerity for reconciliation. She was sentenced to three years and October in prison for the crime of public welfare embezzlement.
As for the civil claim, the judge held that the establishment of Nanyao Palace was not funded by the state or local government, and its property was not owned by it. The object of donations from believers was also the temple, so its money could not be entered into the national treasury or local government treasury. The "manager" of Yao Palace is not the owner. The property of Nanyao Palace in the "Changhua City Temple Special Fund Account" set up is not public property. Its income and expenditure can only be used to handle temple-related affairs and are not Regarding the public property of the Changhua City Office, the Changhua City Office’s claim that Zhou’s embezzlement of more than 5.19 million yuan is an infringement of public property, and the request for return has no substantive grounds and is still groundless and should be rejected.
In this regard, Lin Shixian said that the civil claim part will be appealed again.
5.19 million yuan of sesame oil money from Nanyao Palace in Changhua City was embezzled by a female clerk.
(file photo)