A suspect surnamed Gou revealed that he once reached out to Zhou for a case on payment delays for migrant workers, but contrary to Zhou's previous image as a rights lawyer, he showed no interest in the case and refused.
"It was all about profits. They were not interested because defending the migrant workers won't earn them much money," Gou said.
According to multiple suspects, the firm claimed to accept cases free of charges, but would later organize donations to solicit funds online in the name of rights protection. Use of the charity funds was seldom monitored or recorded, and many went to the lawyers' own pockets.
"An online donation was held for a high-profile case in Heilongjiang Province last year, with more than 100,000 yuan collected. I was supposed to be the supervisor, but I hadn't a chance to see the ledger and had no idea where the money had gone," Liu said.
In a trademark dispute in 2014, while other lawyers recommended reducing sentences, Zhou claimed to be able to prove the defendants' innocence so as to win the defendants' trust and manage the case. He reportedly promised to return the one million yuan as the attorney's fee if he couldn't get half of the arrested released.
Zhou's group then resorted to the usual tricks of disrupting court orders, verbally attacking judges and hyping up the case on the Interent, but the court still found all the defendants guilty.
Zhou never returned the one million yuan, an unnamed lawyer with the firm said.
"Acts of a minority of lawyers have gone far beyond the realm of their professional practices, severely violating lawyers' professional ethics, disrupting judicial activities and social orders," said He Yong, a senior official with the Ministry of Justice.
Saturday's statement also revealed evidence pointing to possible tax evasion and bribing state functionaries in order to win cases.
In the trademark case, Zhou reportedly let the defendants wire the one million yuan as well as 300,000 yuan to compensate traffic costs directly to his personal account.
"Attorney's fees were often wired into my own accounts or accounts related to me, and I didn't pay tax for those fees. It was a severe violation of the law," Zhou confessed.
According to Liu, Zhou also paid firm employees' salaries himself, exact figures unknown to the financing office, noting that it might be related to tax evasion.
Several suspects have confessed and shown regrets.
"Our acts were not compatible with a normal lawyer. Whether practicing the law or being a citizen, no matter what problems emerge, we should always resort to legal channels to solve them," Liu said.
Liu added that "savage acts" can only become negative factors in the country's rule of law and might also be taken advantage by foreign malicious forces.
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