Former TV news anchor Sorrayuth Suthassanachinda ate and slept well on his first night behind bars after losing his Supreme Court appeal and being sent to jail on Tuesday for embezzlement of MCOT advertising revenue.
Corrections Department director-general Naras Savestanan said on Wednesday that he had received a report from Bangkok Remand Prison that inmate Sorrayuth, 53, was in a "normal state of mind".
He had eaten and slept well and was adjusting to prison life and living with other inmates, the department chief said.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court sentenced Sorrayuth to "six years and 24 months" in jail with no suspension after finding him guilty of supporting the wrongdoing of a government official who did not report extra commercials in his news programme on state-run MCOT's TV channel from Feb 4, 2005 to April 28, 2006.
This cost MCOT 138 million baht, its contractual share of the advertising revenue.
The court found that Sorrayuth's firm Raisom bribed the official, paying about 600,000 baht, to alter the records. Evidence showed that records of commercials were erased with correction fluid 17 times.
The Supreme Court dismissed Sorrayuth's argument that there was only one offence. However, it shortened his total sentence to 6 years and 24 months, from the 13 years and four months handed down by the Appeal Court on August 29, 2017.
His staffer Montha Theeradet, 46, who coordinated the wrongdoing, was also sentenced to six years and 24 months in jail, also shortened from 13 years and four months.
Pichapa Iamsa-ard, 50, the MCOT official tasked with keeping a record of the commercials, was sentenced to a reduced 12 years in prison for malfeasance causing damage to the MCOT. Her term was shortened from 20 years.
The fine imposed on Raisom Co was reduced from 80,000 baht to 72,000 baht.