Supreme court overturns death verdict on Wu Ying
By Li Qian |
00:47 UTC+8 April 21, 2012
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINA'S supreme court has overturned a death sentence on a 31-year-old businesswoman who had persuaded investors to lend her hundreds of millions of yuan.
Wu Ying was convicted by a lower court in 2009 of cheating investors out of 380 million yuan (US$60.3 million) by offering returns as high as 180 percent.
Before the case came to light, Wu was best known for her rags-to-riches story in which she built up a multimillion-dollar business after starting with a single beauty salon.
After reviewing her case, the Supreme People's Court said yesterday that the facts and evidence were clear and conclusive, and she deserved legal punishment as her actions "brought about extremely harmful effects by causing severe losses to the victims and disrupting the national financial order."
But it sent the case back to the top provincial court in her hometown province of Zhejiang for a retrial, saying she can be sentenced to death but deserved a reprieve from the capital punishment. This rules out an immediate execution.
The supreme court said Wu had spent about 10 million yuan on clothes, cosmetics and banquets. She also owned four BMWs and a 3.75 million yuan Ferrari.
Wu is said to have deliberately flaunted her fortune in order to gain the confidence of investors for future fundraising, the court said.
On one occasion, after 33 million yuan vanished in futures speculation, she lied to investors by saying the deal had been a success and paid them 16 million yuan, a sum borrowed elsewhere, as a bonus. Encouraged by the ruse, investors lent her another 50 million yuan.
The court said that Wu had raised large sums of funds from private lenders outside the state banking system though she knew she couldn't pay it back.
In 2006, Wu was the sixth richest woman on Chinese mainland with personal assets of 3.6 billion yuan. But at the time of her arrest in 2007, she was 380 million yuan in debt.
She had confessed to all her crimes and admitted bribing "a multiple number" of government employees, the court said.
Zhang Yanfeng, Wu's lawyer, said he would be maintaining his client's innocence at the retrial.
Wu dropped out of school as teenager and built up her business empire in just three years, Xinhua news agency said.
But in 2009, the Intermediate People's Court of Jinhua in Zhejiang found she had illegally pooled 770 million yuan from private creditors between 2005 and 2007 to fund her businesses under the Zhejiang-based Bense Holding Group.
Wu cheated investors into pouring in money by making false promises of high returns, according to the Jinhua court.
It said Wu was guilty of "fabricating facts, deliberately hiding the truth, and promising high returns as an incentive."
Sentencing her to death, it also ordered that all her personal property be confiscated, and stripped her of political rights for life.
Wu appealed the verdict, but the death sentence was upheld in January by Zhejiang's Higher People's Court, leading to widespread debate over whether such a punishment was too harsh for an economic crime.
Many people, including legal experts, called for leniency.
"Sentencing Wu to death is a shame on China's legal system," said Wang Wei, chairman of the Chinese Museum of Finance, on his microblog.
Wang said that Wu's case was a byproduct of China's current financial environment in which a fundraising system was evolving.
"It's unfair to blame one person for the defective banking system," Wang said.
Wu Ying was convicted by a lower court in 2009 of cheating investors out of 380 million yuan (US$60.3 million) by offering returns as high as 180 percent.
Before the case came to light, Wu was best known for her rags-to-riches story in which she built up a multimillion-dollar business after starting with a single beauty salon.
After reviewing her case, the Supreme People's Court said yesterday that the facts and evidence were clear and conclusive, and she deserved legal punishment as her actions "brought about extremely harmful effects by causing severe losses to the victims and disrupting the national financial order."
But it sent the case back to the top provincial court in her hometown province of Zhejiang for a retrial, saying she can be sentenced to death but deserved a reprieve from the capital punishment. This rules out an immediate execution.
The supreme court said Wu had spent about 10 million yuan on clothes, cosmetics and banquets. She also owned four BMWs and a 3.75 million yuan Ferrari.
Wu is said to have deliberately flaunted her fortune in order to gain the confidence of investors for future fundraising, the court said.
On one occasion, after 33 million yuan vanished in futures speculation, she lied to investors by saying the deal had been a success and paid them 16 million yuan, a sum borrowed elsewhere, as a bonus. Encouraged by the ruse, investors lent her another 50 million yuan.
The court said that Wu had raised large sums of funds from private lenders outside the state banking system though she knew she couldn't pay it back.
In 2006, Wu was the sixth richest woman on Chinese mainland with personal assets of 3.6 billion yuan. But at the time of her arrest in 2007, she was 380 million yuan in debt.
She had confessed to all her crimes and admitted bribing "a multiple number" of government employees, the court said.
Zhang Yanfeng, Wu's lawyer, said he would be maintaining his client's innocence at the retrial.
Wu dropped out of school as teenager and built up her business empire in just three years, Xinhua news agency said.
But in 2009, the Intermediate People's Court of Jinhua in Zhejiang found she had illegally pooled 770 million yuan from private creditors between 2005 and 2007 to fund her businesses under the Zhejiang-based Bense Holding Group.
Wu cheated investors into pouring in money by making false promises of high returns, according to the Jinhua court.
It said Wu was guilty of "fabricating facts, deliberately hiding the truth, and promising high returns as an incentive."
Sentencing her to death, it also ordered that all her personal property be confiscated, and stripped her of political rights for life.
Wu appealed the verdict, but the death sentence was upheld in January by Zhejiang's Higher People's Court, leading to widespread debate over whether such a punishment was too harsh for an economic crime.
Many people, including legal experts, called for leniency.
"Sentencing Wu to death is a shame on China's legal system," said Wang Wei, chairman of the Chinese Museum of Finance, on his microblog.
Wang said that Wu's case was a byproduct of China's current financial environment in which a fundraising system was evolving.
"It's unfair to blame one person for the defective banking system," Wang said.
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