China court upholds verdict, 13-year sentence for pol caught in sex-tape extortion scandal Lei Zhengfu, former Secretary of the Beibei District Committee of the Communist Party of China in Chongqing, seen on Feb. 11, 2010. / AP BEIJING A southern Chinese court Tuesday upheld the guilty verdict and sentence against the former city official at the heart of a sex tape scandal. Lei Zhengfu was convicted in June of accepting more than 3 million yuan ($500,000) in bribes from a developer to pay off a businessman who was using the tape to blackmail him. Lei, the former party chief of a district in the southern city of Chongqing, had said the money was a loan. He subsequently appealed. The Chongqing High Court said in a statement posted online it had upheld Lei's 13-year prison sentence, his being stripped of his political rights for three years and the seizure of 300,000 yuan of his private assets along with the bribes he took.