Source:
https://scmp.com/news/china/article/1294332/four-senior-shanghai-judges-suspended-hiring-prostitutes
China

Four senior Shanghai judges suspended for hiring prostitutes

Four senior Shanghai judges are filmed with prostitutes at a luxury resort in the Pudong New Area. Photo: Bloomberg

Four senior Shanghai judges have been suspended from their posts after it emerged they had hired prostitutes, the municipal disciplinary authorities said yesterday.

Four officials with the Shanghai Higher People's Court, including Chen Xueming and Zhao Minghua, chief and deputy chief judge of the No 1 civil court, were among five people filmed with prostitutes at a luxury resort in the city's Pudong New Area in June. There was no official information about the fifth person's identity.

An anonymous blogger posted eight minutes of surveillance footage on the internet showing officials picking up prostitutes at the Hengshan Resort. He told the Beijing Times he had submitted the unedited 30-hour video to the city's discipline inspection commission. He said he copied the footage from the resort's security system, pretending he was looking for something he had lost.

The blogger said he began to look into Zhao's behaviour after suspecting the judge improperly intervened in a civil lawsuit he was involved with in 2009. He started his investigation after learning Zhao might be a relative of the plaintiff, the report said.

He told the newspaper he had also collected evidence detailing Zhao's frequent and lavish spending habits, his ownership of several homes and extramarital affairs. The Legal Evening News reported the blogger first informed police about Zhao's association with prostitutes in April, but he became the target of a police interrogation.