An employee of a certain provincial branch of China Telecom was found a few years ago to have committed crimes such as embezzlement and accepting bribes, yet was surprisingly convicted again in the second trial.

Operator Observation / Article

In 2020, an employee named Gao from Sichuan Telecom Ya’an Branch was investigated after an incident. Surprisingly, this small employee was quite bold—committing embezzlement and accepting bribes. Later, after appealing in the second trial, his sentence was reduced. What exactly happened?

Gao’s incident occurred in April 2020. He was only 46 years old that year, clearly with no prospects for promotion, working as a contract employee. He was responsible for maintenance of the network department office, network resources, network technology, network engineering, and network construction project management at Sichuan Telecom Ya’an Branch. In December of the same year, he was sentenced in the first trial, and later he appealed in the second trial.

Investigations revealed that from 2010 to 2016, Gao exploited his position managing engineering projects to collude with others, embezzling company funds and seeking personal benefits, illegally accepting money from others.

His crimes mainly consisted of two charges: embezzlement and accepting bribes.

Between 2015 and 2016, Gao used false procurement, false receipt, and false warehousing methods to repeatedly purchase materials such as tail fiber trays, cable racks, lightning-proof boxes, and lightning-proof modules from a certain company. The false invoices for cable racks and tail fiber trays amounted to 1.1204 million yuan, with taxes of 190,468 yuan; false invoices for lightning-proof boxes and modules totaled 539,469 yuan, with taxes of 91,709.73 yuan, totaling over 1.9 million yuan. He then had the other company return the amount to him.

Secondly, he accepted bribes.

From 2011 to 2014, relevant personnel from the company paid Gao a total of 130,000 yuan in bribes to thank him for his support and assistance in supplying materials for engineering projects.

In the first trial, Gao was sentenced to 5 years and 6 months in prison for these two crimes.

However, Gao later appealed, arguing that the amount involved in the embezzlement was improperly calculated, that the refunded amount should not be included in the crime amount, and that the newly revised Criminal Law Amendment (Eleven) changed the sentencing ranges and degrees for embezzlement and bribes by non-state staff. Therefore, the case should be resentenced based on the principle of favoring the lighter sentence.

Ultimately, considering the case of “large amount” for bribes by non-state staff under the new law, the legal provisions were amended from “imprisonment of less than five years or detention” to “imprisonment of up to three years or detention, and a fine.”

Gao’s second-instance sentence was thus changed to 3 years and 6 months, and his sentence ended on October 7, 2023.

In summary, even a small employee can be so bold, but ultimately, the truth cannot be hidden forever. Wrongdoings must be punished.

(Editor: Wu Bihui)