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A Vietnamese real estate mogul at the center of a multi-billion dollar fraud case in the Communist country is seeking a reprieve from her death sentence.
Truong My Lan, 68, said the April death sentence was “too severe and harsh,” and asked the court for a more lenient punishment for her role in a $27 billion corruption case, the news outlet VNExpress reported.
Lan also received a separate sentence of life in prison alongside her death sentence. This week, she asked the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City to commute her death sentence and unfreeze some of her family’s assets.
“It hurts me to see many people being dragged into the crimes,” Lan told the court, VNExpress reported. “I am not blaming anyone nor defending myself, and I accept the full consequences of what I did. I just want to explain so the judges will understand and commute my sentence.”
According to reports, Lan was convicted of embezzlement over the course of 10 years while using her position as a banking executive. She was found guilty of asset appropriation, money laundering and illegal international money transfers.
Lan’s husband, along with other relatives and banking executives, have also been convicted and sentenced to time in prison as the country carries out a corruption crackdown.
The cases have led to protests among some of the thousands of small-time investors who were allegedly defrauded in the scheme, which included the issuance of illegal bonds.
Lan was the chairwoman of the development company Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group.
She and other defendants were accused of embezzling $12.5 billion from Saigon Commercial Bank through as many as 1,000 shell companies that were all controlled by Lan and her associates.
Lan’s companies own several high-profile buildings around Vietnam. Foreign investors have signaled to the court overseeing Lan’s case that they’d be interested in taking over the assets in the wake of the trials.
Those properties include a string of high-end hotels, including Times Square Saigon, one of the tallest buildings in Ho Chi Minh City, Sherwood Residence and Windsor Plaza Hotel. Some of the companies’ buildings remain incomplete. It’s not clear whether the companies own or operate real estate in the U.S., though a quote listed on the company’s website makes that unlikely.
“I believe success should be measured by the ever lasting imprint that one could leave to the sustainable growth of one nation and its people,” according to the quote, which is attributed to Lan.
In court, Lan has called her sentences unjust.
“Standing here today is a price too expensive for me to pay. I consider this my destiny and a career accident,” she said last month, according to VNExpress.
