New | Taiwanese playboy Justin Lee to appeal 80-year sentence for multiple rapes

A well-known Taiwanese playboy vowed to appeal his conviction on Wednesday after he was sentenced to nearly 80 years in jail for raping and secretly filming more than a dozen women.

Justin Lee, a 29-year-old frequent fixture on Taiwan’s party scene, was convicted of sexually assaulting 14 women and secretly taping them and five others, Taiwan’s High Court said.

“Mr Lee denied the charges of drugging and raping the women,” Lee’s lawyer, Leo Tzou, said.

“We regret that the court did not take into account some of the evidence more favourable for him and the sentencing was much heavier than we had expected.”

Lee insisted that the acts were consensual and will appeal the ruling, Tzou said.

According to the verdict, Lee, the son of a wealthy businessman formerly on the board of the financial group Yuanta Holdings, brought the victims who were often drunk from night clubs or bars to his apartment.

There, it said, he sexually assaulted them and recorded the acts with unidentified taping devices and his mobile phone.