On April 14, Taiwanese director Niu Chengze was sentenced to four years in prison by the Taipei District Court for sexually assaulting a female film staff member.
Niu Chengze sexually assaulted a female film staff incident was exposed on December 5, 2018. According to the victim, she met Niu Chengze after joining the crew of "Horse Run". On November 23, 2018, Niu Chengze canceled the meeting and invited several staff members, including the victim, to their homes. After everyone else left in the early morning that night, Niu Chengze was alone with the victim and sexually assaulted her. The victim resisted fiercely, and in the end Niu Chengze's sexual assault failed. After the victim's emotional collapse, he went to the Taipei City Maternal and Child Police Station in China to report the case on December 5 with the encouragement of his friends.
After the incident was exposed, Niu Chengze's work was completely stopped and the crew of "Running Horse" was disbanded soon. Niu Chengze also quickly refuted, saying that the two sides were in a relationship with "boy and girlfriend moving in the direction of interaction", but the victim soon posted a chat record and denied it.
On December 10, 2018, after Niu Chengze was interrogated, the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office allowed him to pay NT$1.5 million (about NT$330,000) for bail, and at the same time restricted from residence, departure and overseas. When facing the media, he said, "There is no intention or behavior of hurting others in this life or coercing others. So far, it has been. I firmly believe that the judicial system will give me the most fair judgment."
As many details were exposed afterwards, the victim also went to the hospital for injury examinations accompanied by a friend, which became the key evidence of Niu Chengze's accusation. In 2019, the case was held seven trials. It was reported in September that Niu Chengze reached a settlement with the victim, but the two sides did not reach an agreement on the settlement fund. Many media reported that Niu Chengze initially hoped to settle for NT$600,000. In the end, the two parties agreed that the compensation was as high as seven digits. Due to the confidentiality agreement , the specific amount could not be known.
In the seventh trial, the Taipei District Court ruled that Niu Chengze would restrict his departure and going abroad for 8 months from January 10. On February 25 this year, the case was heard again, and Niu Chengze was also found to have hanged his residence, that is, the crime site, on the real estate agency platform, with a price of 49.8 million (about 11.57 million yuan), but it was not sold.
However, in this case, although Niu Chengze took out compensation and admitted his mistake many times, he did not plead guilty in court. He repeatedly stated that he did not remember the specific story when he was drunk at the time, and argued that it was the victim's attitude towards him that he had misleadingly "going in love," which was to treat the other party as his girlfriend. During the trial, the prosecutor of the case said that Niu Chengze blamed the fault on the victim and did not plead guilty, so there is a possibility of re-offending, and the case is "indicator", so the judge should not give a lighter sentence if the settlement fund is considered.
Niu Chengze himself did not appear in court today. After the judgment was issued, Niu Chengze still had the right to appeal. This is the second time Niu Chengze has been sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment by the court in recent years. As early as 2014, he was sentenced to five months of fixed-term imprisonment for "illegal" taking mainland photographer Cao Yu into the military port to board the fleet for surveying landscapes. He was sentenced to five months of fixed-term imprisonment for two years of probation.
Niu Chengze started to be involved in acting since he was 9 years old, and started to be a director in 2000, filming his debut work "Xiaoguang". He has participated in and directed works such as "The Way to Survive when Love Is Not a Must Be", "I'm Sunny in Kenting", "艋舺", "Love", etc., and has won several award nominations. "艋舺" and " Military Paradise " have also been shortlisted for the Berlin Film Festival Panoramic Unit.
