Taiwan millionaire teen’s death: Husband charged with forging gay marriage documents, not murder
Lok Jian Wen
Jun 22, 2023 01:14 am
Prosecutors in Taiwan have closed investigations into the death of the Taiwanese teenager dubbed the “$500 million high schooler” by local media following his perplexing death two hours after he was legally married in May.
The 18-year-old, identified by his surname Lai, had fallen to his death from a flat on the 10th floor in Taichung on May 4.
The flat in the central Taiwan city was the residence of a man identified only by the surname Hsia, an escrow agent with whom Mr Lai had just registered their marriage hours earlier.
At a press conference after the death, Mr Lai’s mother said her son had inherited a property portfolio worth around NT$500 million (S$21.7 million) and accused Hsia of murdering him to lay claim to the hefty real estate portfolio.
After more than a month’s worth of investigations, Taichung’s district prosecutors on Wednesday said multi-agency investigations yielded insufficient evidence that Hsia or his father, also an escrow agent who was reportedly managing the Lai family’s portfolio, was involved in the teenager’s death.
Instead, Hsia will be charged with forging the documents that legalised his marriage to Mr Lai.
Prosecutors suspect he proposed a scam marriage while having designs on Mr Lai’s inheritance, Taiwanese daily China Times reported, citing the contents of the indictment report.
Hsia was previously suspected of homicide but was released from detention on bail of NT$300,000.
Prosecutors said last week a comprehensive autopsy determined that evidence including injuries found on Mr Lai’s body showed there was no foul play that led to his fall. On Wednesday, they added that the high school student was “emotionally distressed” before his death.
According to China Times, prosecutors wrote in their indictment report that they found that Mr Lai had confided in Hsia and expressed uncertainty about managing the properties he inherited. Feeling pressured by his biological father’s first wife and their children, who he said made a scene at his father’s funeral, he agreed to the same-sex marriage with Hsia.
Local media has cast doubt on the same-sex marriage, legal in Taiwan, citing witnesses including Mr Lai’s former teachers who said he had sought counselling over his unrequited feelings for a female classmate. His mother also denied he was gay.
Hsia is suspected of seeking marriage witnesses who were neither friend nor kin to himself and Mr Lai, while also falsifying statements that indicated both their parents were aware of the marriage.
If the marriage is determined to be a sham, Hsia will lose his claim to Mr Lai’s inheritance, which he may have asserted his right to as a legally wedded partner.
Hsia was searching randomly for the two required witnesses for their marriage, Taichung prosecutors said, leaving the authorities questioning his intentions. Examinations of their phone records also yielded the conclusion that the two had minimal contact before their marriage.
Taiwanese media cited people in a convenience store near the Beitun district household registration office, where the marriage was solemnised, as saying Hsia had approached them for help, claiming their families opposed the union.
Hsia had told investigators that by registering their marriage, he was helping Mr Lai to access the inheritance passed down by his father, local media reported, as the patriarch of the Lai family had declared he would hand over his portfolio to the first of his sons to tie the knot.
Speaking to Taiwan’s Central News Agency, Mr Michael Hsu, the lawyer hired by Mr Lai’s mother, identified by the media as Ms Chen, said she “regretted” the prosecutors’ decision not to press charges for homicide, citing the need to claim justice for her son.
The matter of the Lai family’s inheritance remains up in the air.
The claims Ms Chen may lay to the real estate portfolio may reportedly be curtailed by her Chinese nationality, with some Taiwanese lawyers speculating she may be entitled to only NT$2 million of the portfolio that comprises more than 30 pieces of property.
Mr Lai’s intriguing family background has also been scrutinised by local media, notably his biological ties with his father, who was previously known as his grandfather in official documents.
Taiwan’s United Daily News reported that Mr Lai’s mother had arrived in Taiwan in 2002 for an arranged marriage with a disabled man. After the man’s death, she bore a child with her father-in-law, a boy who would grow up to be the 18-year-old Mr Lai.
The father-in-law later legally “adopted” his biological son to facilitate his property inheritance.
