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Tag: Xtron

  • All 6 In City Harvest Church Trial Found Guilty Of All Charges

    All 6 In City Harvest Church Trial Found Guilty Of All Charges

    The six City Harvest Church (CHC) leaders have been found guilty of various charges of criminal breach of trust and falsification of accounts.

    CHC founder Kong Hee, his deputy Tan Ye Peng, former church accountant Serina Wee, former church finance manager Sharon Tan, former investment manager Chew Eng Han and former CHC board member John Lam were today convicted of three to 10 charges each.

    All six are out on bail. The bail stood at S$1 million each for Kong Hee, Tan Ye Peng, John Lam and Chew Eng Han. The bail for Serina Wee and Sharon Tan was at $750,000 each. They are not allowed to travel.

    Delivering his oral judgement this morning, Presiding Judge of the State Courts See Kee Oon said that all six were “inextricably tangled” in two conspiracies of misusing church Building Fund monies to buy sham bond investments to finance the Crossover Project — which aims to use the music of church co-founder and Kong’s wife Sun Ho to evangelise — and thereafter misusing make church funds to cover up the first amount to defraud auditors by falsifying accounts. More than S$50 million was found to have been misappropriated.

    JC See found that while Tan Ye Peng, Chew, Wee, Sharon Tan and Lam had acted in trust of Kong’s leadership, it does not exonerate them. “No matter how pure the motives and how ingrained the trust in leaders, these do not exonerate the accused persons.”

    While the extents of their involvement were distinct, Judicial Commissioner (JC) See said none could be excluded from their implication in the conspiracy.

    He added: “They had convinced themselves morally and legally permissible to temporarily use money from CHC funds when they knew it was not.”

    JC See said he could not accept that the accused persons genuinely believe sale of Ms Ho’s albums would generate enough to redeem the bonds, and therefore cannot accept their claims that they believed the bond investments were genuine.

    He also found that use of Building Fund monies to finance the Crossover shows dishonesty, as the Crossover “was not for the purposes (the fund was meant for) since by (the accused persons’) own admission it was meant to service mission.”

    The prosecution will have to file written submissions by Nov 6, while the defence will file mitigation pleas by Nov 13. Oral submissions to be delivered on Nov 20 at 9.30am.

    They will be sentenced at a later date.

    Shortly after the judgement, Ms Sun Ho issued a statement on CHC’s Facebook page saying that the CHC Management Board are “disappointed by the outcome”.

    Following the verdict, Ms Ho said Kong Hee and the rest are “studying the judgement intently and will take legal advice from their respective lawyers”.

    CHC’s operations will continue, with the new management and new Church Board that were introduced in 2012 running the church, said Ms Ho who called on the church to “stay on course with CHC 2.0”.

    “God is making us stronger, purer and more mature as a congregation,” she said on behalf of the CHC Management Board.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • City Harvest Trial: Church ‘Suffered No Wrongful Loss’

    City Harvest Trial: Church ‘Suffered No Wrongful Loss’

    The long-running City Harvest trial closed yesterday, with four of the accused stressing that there was no wrongful loss suffered by City Harvest Church (CHC).

    They said they were entitled legally to invest church funds in the music career of the pastor’s wife as it was a church objective.

    This was their stand as lawyers on both sides wrapped up their closing submissions on the 140th day of the trial. A verdict will be delivered on Oct 21 by Presiding Judge of the State Courts See Kee Oon.

    Senior Counsel N. Sreenivasan, acting for 42-year-old deputy senior pastor Tan Ye Peng, said it was “crystal clear” to church auditors and lawyers that money from CHC’s building fund was invested in pop singer Ho Yeow Sun’s music career.

    “The money that went out came back to the church, with interest,” he said, adding that evidence showed the church was allowed to invest in Ms Ho’s career.

    But whether this investment was an authorised use of the building fund, is a point disputed by the prosecution. Ms Ho is the wife of senior pastor Kong Hee, 51.

    Kong, Tan and four others are accused of misappropriating $24 million in CHC’s building funds through sham bond investments in music production firm Xtron and glass maker Firna, and of misusing a further $26 million to cover it up.

    The four others are former finance managers Serina Wee, 38, and Sharon Tan, 39, and former investment committee members Chew Eng Han, 55, and John Lam, 47. The bonds were used to bankroll Ms Ho’s music career. CHC wanted to use her music to spread the Gospel through what it called the Crossover Project.

    Wee’s lawyer, Senior Counsel Andre Maniam, said it was “very significant” that the prosecution did not dispute that the Crossover Project was in line with church objectives.

    “The prosecution says that we are like Robin Hood, trying to justify robbing the rich to give to the poor… Here, it was church funds being used to further church objectives, not taking money from rich to give to poor,” said Mr Maniam.

    Chew, representing himself, said the funds were invested in Xtron and Firna – which had legal obligations to return the money. But the recoverability of the bonds was based on projections of Ms Ho’s unreleased US album – for which his fellow co-accused had to rely on Kong . “For the obvious reason that the one that has the most knowledge and the one that’s managing it is Kong Hee himself,” said Chew.

    He also hit back at the prosecution, who called his evidence incoherent on Monday.

    Chew, who has three decades of experience in finance, said: “Just because the prosecution cannot understand my explanation, doesn’t mean I’ve contradicted myself between my evidence-in-chief and submissions. I think they had better go and take some courses in financial markets before they throw insults at me.”

    Meanwhile, Sharon Tan’s lawyer Paul Seah reiterated that his client was “merely a worker taking instructions and carrying them out”.

    The lawyers for Kong and Lam responded on Monday.

    Rounding up the submissions, Deputy Public Prosecutor Mavis Chionh called into question the defence’s argument that the accused had acted in good faith.

    She asked the court to consider their actions over the years – such as when Kong told CHC executive members in 2007 that the building fund was to be invested to preserve its value, while at the same time, he planned to spend $13 million from it on Ms Ho’s music career.

     

    Source: www.straitstimes.com