Sexual Molestation by Taiwanese Expat in Belize
Los Angeles and Taipei, Oct. 4 (CNA) The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on Tuesday confirmed that a Taiwanese expatriate is being detained in Los Angeles for alleged sexual misconduct in Belize, where he practiced acupuncture and Chinese medicine. It was reported Tuesday in the Chinese-language China Times that Kevin Lee molested several of his Belizean female patients and also videotaped them as they got undressed. Many of the victims were said to be wives of politically prominent people and well-known socialites. Taiwan’s representative office in Belize has been closely monitoring the situation since late September when the case broke out and is now assisting Belizean police in their investigation, said MOFA spokesman James Chang. Taiwan’s ambassador to the Central American country said in a telephone interview with CNA Monday that Lee, who has lived in Belize for nearly two decades, had engaged in secretly filming his patients but did not commit sexual assaults as alleged. “This is not a sexual assault case. No wives of ranking Belize officials fell prey to Lee,” said Ambassador David C.K. Wu, who also confirmed Lee’s arrest. The China Times reported that a technician who was fixing Lee’s PC several weeks ago found nearly 600 video files in Lee’s hard disk that showed several Belize socialites and ministers’ wives being sexually molested in his clinic. The disk began to circulate after an attempt to blackmail Lee failed, causing a social uproar in the traditionally quiet country. Sources who have watched the videos said the victims seemed to have been sexually assaulted in a dazed condition, the report said. The victims apparently included female diplomats from other countries stationed in Belize and their dependents, leading Belize police to issue an international warrant for Lee through Interpol, which led to Lee’s arrest last week, the report added. Wu said his embassy has learned that a suspect who tried to blackmail Lee showed a disk and the letter used in the blackmail scheme to a leader of the Taiwanese expat community. The disk shows a patron undressing herself. Wu said that as the two parties played the disk over dinner, a Belizean official nearby then alerted a Belizean minister and the matter came to light. The diplomat contended that the victims were average Belizean citizens and that no wives of ranking officials were involved, as far as the embassy knew. He said news that wives of senior officials were involved was simply speculation, and noted that police in the country had yet to confirm them. Because many of the 1,000 Taiwanese living in Belize practice Chinese medicine, Wu expressed the hope that the incident would not hurt Taiwanese expatriates there and would not affect Taiwan’s image in the country. (By Nancy Liu, Oscar Wu and Lilian Wu)
