Beijing: A former top Chinese government official who was sidelined from the top reaches of power after his son died in a notorious Ferrari crash in Beijing in 2012 has been expelled from the Communist Party and referred for prosecution over corruption and other crimes.
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Ling Jihua, 58, who was once the top aide to former President Hu Jintao, had committed numerous violations of "party discipline", according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
The violations included accepting bribes, wrongly obtaining state secrets and committing adultery with multiple women.
"He took advantage of his posts to seek profit for others and accepted huge bribes personally and through his family," Xinhua said in a report late on Monday.
Mr Ling was once considered a top candidate for promotion to the party's elite Politburo before it emerged that he had attempted to cover up the salacious circumstances surrounding the high-speed black Ferrari 458 Spider crash, which occurred in central Beijing in March 2012.
Instead, Mr Ling was given less influential posts. In February, he was stood down as vice-chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference's National Committee, two months after an investigation into his affairs was announced.
Despite a media blackout at the time an already sensational car crash was made even more so when it emerged it was his 23-year-old son Ling Gu at the wheel, travelling with two partially-clad female occupants. One of the young women would later die of her injuries.
The Ferrari scandal prompted much online debate over how the young son of a public servant could afford a luxury sports car and an excessive lifestyle.
At a time when the party was busy preparing for a crucial leadership transition to current President Xi Jinping, the incident also served to underline public anger over widespread official corruption, and the widening gap between rich and poor, exacerbated by the increasingly ostentatious flaunting of wealth by the rich offspring of businessmen and officials.
Mr Xi's pervasive anti-corruption campaign, which began soon after he took power in November 2012, has proven popular with many ordinary Chinese – though many still remain sceptical over whether the campaign is primarily a move to purge political rivals.
Mr Ling is the latest senior official to fall, completing what some sections of the media have dubbed the "New Gang of Four".
Former Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai and former security chief Zhou Yongkang were both sentenced to life in jail, while senior military official Xu Caihou died of cancer in hospital while facing corruption charges.
