Tale of a Shanghai Court's 'Simple Accounting Errors'

摘要

Shanghai―Jude Shao returned to ina nearly a decade ago with visions of wealth and success. Today, the U.S. businessman languishes in a prison outside Shanghai―a stunning reversal of fortune that highlights the sometimes dangerous downside of doing business in China. Two years ago, Mr. Shao, a 40-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, was convicted in a Shanghai court of defrauding the government of $393,000 in taxes and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Mr. Shao in-sists he is innocent. Court and police officials, he and his family say, denied him the opportunity to gather evidence that would have exonerated him. Instead, according to court records, his conviction was based on two pieces of evidence: testimony from a Chinese individual implicated in a wider tax scandal, and a confession that prosecutors say Mr. Shao made in detention hut that Mr. Shao denies ever happened.