MCLC: official sentenced in sex scandal

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: official sentenced in sex scandal
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Source: NYT (6/28/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/29/world/asia/chinese-official-in-sex-scanda
l-gets-13-year-sentence.html

Chinese Official Sentenced to 13 Years in Sex Scandal That Was Exposed on
Internet
By CHRIS BUCKLEY

HONG KONG — Lei Zhengfu, a Chinese official who became a symbol of
corruption, was convicted of taking bribes and sentenced to 13 years in
prison on Friday in a scandal that exposed the sordid deal-making in
Communist Party politics.

The conviction of Mr. Lei was the culmination of a fall that began when
video images spread on the Internet in November showing him with an
18-year-old woman. The images, and ensuing accusations of graft and
extortion, made him a much-mocked exhibit in the newly appointed Communist
Party leadership’s efforts to persuade citizens that it was stamping out
official graft and depravity, which have stoked deepening public ire.

Mr. Lei was sentenced days after President Xi Jinping made a new call to
halt bureaucratic corruption and bribe-taking. A court in Chongqing, the
municipality in southwest China where Mr. Lei once worked, dismissed his
argument that a payoff of $488,000, or 3 million renminbi, he had arranged
through an associate was a legitimate loan, not hush money to keep secret
the video showing him with the young woman.

The court said the money amounted to a bribe.

“The sums involved were massive, and the effects were malign,” said the
verdict read to Mr. Lei in the courtroom, according to Xinhua, China’s
state-run news agency. “This should be sternly punished according to the
law.”

China’s leaders have vowed to get rid of corrupt officials, however low or
high. Before his dismissal in November, Mr. Lei was the party secretary of
Beibei, a district of Chongqing. Critics said the spectacle of his trial
did not make up for Mr. Xi’s failure thus far to take down senior
officials, despite widespread speculation about corruption investigations
in the government and the military involving powerful figures and large
amounts of money.

“Lei Zhengfu was not a high-level official,” Zhu Ruifeng, the muckraking
blogger who first publicized the lurid images of Mr. Lei, said in a
telephone interview from Beijing. “I don’t see much hope of the party and
government really taking on corruption.

“Each generation of leaders vows to do that, but the results are plain to
see. We don’t hold much hope.”

The verdict drew avid interest from the Chinese news media and on Web
sites. On Friday, another court in Chongqing convicted Xiao Ye, the
businessman who had orchestrated the “honey trap” and threatened to expose
video from 2008 that showed Mr. Lei, now 55, and the young woman having
sex. Mr. Xiao was sentenced to 10 years in prison on extortion charges,
and the woman, Zhao Hongxia, received a sentence of two years.

On the Internet in China, some voiced wry sympathy for Mr. Lei. “Lei
Zhengfu was given a sentence of 13 years. He was in bed for 12 seconds,
which makes one year for each second, with a year to spare,” said one of
many similar jests on Sina.com’s Weibo, China’s most popular equivalent of
Twitter.

After his sentence was announced, Mr. Lei did not say whether he would
appeal, said Xinhua. China’s party-run courts rarely decide in favor of
defendants, especially in politically charged cases like this one, and
appeals courts overturn guilty verdicts even less.

Mr. Xi, who is the party chief, has started a “rectification” drive
intended to clean up official ranks. During a recent meeting that lasted
four days, he and other leaders denounced “hedonism, extravagance” and
other bureaucratic sins, and took turns chastising themselves and others,
state news media reported.

“Strictly manage your own families and personal staff,” Mr. Xi said.
“Don’t abuse power for selfish gain, don’t seek special privileges.”

But Mr. Zhu, the blogger, said the party authorities in recent months have
tightened restrictions on using the Internet to publicize accusations of
corruption.Mr. Lei was among the first of a succession of party officials
whose misdeeds were exposed on the Internet, leading to their downfalls,
after Mr. Xi became the party leader in November. The hunger for exposing
wayward officials has encouraged an underground trade of extortionists who
concoct pictures of lurid encounters.

“At the time of the leadership handover, when we exposed Lei Zhengfu, the
censorship was not so tough, but now it is again,” Mr. Zhu said. “Our
working environment is worsening.”