An Auckland District Court jury found Pei-Tung Lee embarked on a campaign of blackmail and revenge after learning his wife was having an affair. Photo / 123rf
A Hamilton man who embarked on a prolonged and “malicious” campaign to destroy the life of his wife’s Auckland lover, including a $2 million blackmail demand, has been sentenced to prison.
An Auckland District Court jury found Pei-Tung Lee, 55, guilty earlier this year of three charges: criminal harassment, causing harm via digital communication and blackmail.
“The facts are relatively unusual,” Judge Brooke Gibson said in an understated tone on Friday as Lee returned to the dock for sentencing.
“You have certainly presented in a fairly histrionic and unusual way as a result of discovering the affair.”
The court was told Lee’s wife had been in an extramarital liaison for about five years, beginning when their family lived in Taiwan. Lee had learned of the affair before moving to New Zealand and was led to believe it was over.
But after moving in 2023 to New Zealand, where the other man also lived with his wife, Lee realised the relationship had never ended. That’s when, according to the court, he lost it.
He began texting the complainant in August that year and went to the man’s Auckland workplace two weeks later, accompanied by two men he suggested were muscle for a Taiwanese gang.
“You then treated the complainant in a hostile ... manner,” Judge Gibson said.
“I can understand why you were angry, but at that point matters deteriorated.”
Lee had one of his associates retrieve the other man’s wife, who also worked at the business.
“You showed her a number of intimate visual recordings involving her husband and your wife, which she was completely unaware of,” the judge said.
It was alleged Lee then issued a series of threats, suggesting he knew where their relatives lived in New Zealand and Taiwan, and stating he knew their children’s names and where they attended school. The gang, he claimed, had reached an agreement with him and was ready to act on his behalf.
From August 23 to September 9, 2023, Lee followed up with 105 texts that included “outrageous allegations about what had been a completely consensual affair” and the $2m demand.
“The reaction is utterly disproportionate and vicious,” Judge Gibson said.
In victim impact statements referred to by the judge but not read aloud in court, the other man described being subjected to a “calculated” campaign of psychological abuse and harassment that was “designed to destroy me”. He and his wife have both suffered “extreme” emotional damage as a result, he wrote.
The complainant’s wife also submitted a statement to the court, describing a situation summarised by the judge as “a horrible ordeal that’s left her and her husband in a perpetual state of fear and distress”.
They sought nearly $3000 in emotional harm reparation to pay for their medical and counselling expenses, as well as compensate for the security systems they felt necessary to install at their home and business. The judge granted the request.
Defence lawyer Michael Kan acknowledged his client caused harm to the couple, which he said Lee now regrets. But he said: “This offending did not arise out of nowhere.
“When this all happened, it was a traumatic shock to Mr Lee.”
He argued his client should receive a sentence of less than two years, at which point the judge could consider converting it to home detention. That would be the right outcome, he said, given Lee’s otherwise spotless record and an assessment that found him to have a low risk of re-offending.
Crown prosecutor Nastassia Pearce-Bernie acknowledged home detention might be the most fitting outcome should the sentence end up less than two years. But she didn’t agree with all of the sentence reductions submitted by the defence – necessary for getting to that point.
She pointed to the premeditation Lee needed before arriving at the other man’s workplace and the added distress of threatening his children. There were hundreds of voicemails, texts and emails and multiple trips to the other man’s workplace, she said.
Blackmail carries a maximum possible sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment, while the other two charges are punishable by no more than two years.
Judge Gibson said he accepted that Lee would have been caught off guard by the infidelity revelation and that, given his otherwise clean record, he likely “wouldn’t have offended but for discovering the affair”.
But he also pointed to a Court of Appeal case describing blackmail as a vicious offence in which deterrence is needed.
“This has been a particularly vicious offence in the way you carried it out, because of the campaign you made,” he said.
“The sum demanded was impossibly high and it was clearly made with the intention of causing the gravest harm emotionally and psychologically.
“The threat was serious... The demand was persistently made... You were repeatedly harassing the complainant with texts.”
He ordered a starting point of three years and four months, one month longer than what was proposed by the Crown and 10 months longer than the defence’s request. He then allowed reductions of 15% for his previous good character and 5% for health difficulties and the stress imprisonment would cause for Lee’s children.
The judge declined to allow a reduction for remorse and rehabilitation efforts, resulting in an end sentence of two years and eight months’ imprisonment.
He also ordered that all seized devices be wiped of images and personal information relating to the complainant and his family.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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