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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》Two professors sentenced for fake theses, corruption
The entrance to the Ciaotou District Court in Kaohsiung is pictured in an undated photograph. Photo: Tsai Ching-hua, Taipei Times
By Chen Wen-chan / Staff reporter
The Ciaotou District Court yesterday sentenced two professors at a technology university in Kaohsiung for taking bribes to help six graduate students hire ghostwriters to complete their theses and obtain degrees.
A defendant surnamed Wang （王） was sentenced to seven years imprisonment and a defendant surnamed Tang （唐） was sentenced to five years and two months under the Anti-Corruption Act （貪污治罪條例） for bribery in breach of duty, the ruling said, adding that both were stripped of civil rights for two years.
The ruling can be appealed.
The verdict said both professors were full-time faculty members at the university and served as thesis advisers and members of degree examination committees for in-service programs, making them authorized public officials.
Tang wrote a master’s thesis for a student in exchange for NT$100,000, which was confiscated as illicit proceeds, the ruling said.
Wang hired ghostwriters to write theses for five students, charging more than NT$320,000 for a doctoral candidate and NT$100,000 for each master’s student, and aided their completion of degree examinations, the ruling said, adding that the students subsequently obtained doctoral and master’s degrees.
Illicit gains of more than NT$657,000 were confiscated, the ruling said.
It said several students were found to be unfamiliar with the content of their theses. One doctoral graduate did not even know the title of their dissertation and was unable to understand the fully English-language paper, it said.
In another case, the same master’s thesis was used twice in a bribery scheme, with the content translated back and forth between Chinese and English, enabling two students to obtain master’s degrees, it said.
The six students were convicted under the Anti-Corruption Act for bribing public officials, the ruling said.
One doctoral student received a seven-month prison sentence, suspended for three years. The other five master’s students were each sentenced to six months, suspended for two years.
All were ordered to pay between NT$30,000 and NT$50,000 to the public treasury and to undergo legal education and probation supervision.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
