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Tag Archives: John Lam

BREAKING NEWS: Kong Hee sentenced eight years jail

20 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by Nailed Truth in C3 & Pringles Associations, Pringle's Prophecies, Uncategorized

≈ 34 Comments

Tags

CHC, Chew Eng Han, City Harvest Church, John Lam, Kong Hee, Phil Pringle, prophecy, See Kee Oon, Serina Wee, Sharon Tan, Sun Ho, Tan Ye Peng

Channel News Asia has been continually reporting the unfolding of events in the Singapore courts of the sentencing of six City Harvest Church leaders.

Press report on Kong & cohorts back in court for oral submission

The judge has sentenced Kong Hee eight years jail in prison.

Kong Hee jailed Phil Pringle

This is the latest update:

City Harvest trial live updates: Leaders sentenced to jail

SINGAPORE: The six City Harvest leaders who were found guilty of criminal breach of trust and falsifying church accounts were on Friday (Nov 20) received jail terms of between 21 months and eight years.

3.00pm: The six leaders have been sentenced to between 21 months’ and eight years’ jail, with senior pastor Kong Hee receiving the heaviest sentence of eight years behind bars. Judge See Kee Oon said Kong Hee, the church’s founder, was found to be the most culpable among the convicted church leaders.

The bail for all six of them was extended, and the start of their jail terms have been deferred to Jan 11, 2016.

1.57pm: “For us ex-members we’ll leave it to the judge. We have to respect the Honour’s decision. As what the prosecutor says, we need to do it right now because it will have a great repercussion on other mega churches on what and what cannot be done,” said a man who identified himself as a former City Harvest member.

1.32pm: Judge says he will pass the sentence at 3pm.

1.28pm: Prosecution: “In pursuing the Crossover Project, the accused have clearly crossed so far over the line that a substantial sentence is certainly called for.”

1.04pm: Prosecution: “This Court has found that loans were sought from a number of individuals in order for Xtron to return the ARLA (Advance Rental Licence Agreement) to CHC… Tan Ye Peng sold his house to pay back. Well, the alternative was to come to court and admit what he has done.”

12.55pm: Prosecution: “We submit that nothing in their circumstances will render the “clang of the prison gates” so thunderous as to justify a short term of imprisonment.”

12.48pm: Prosecution: “Where an offence involves a breach of trust, this is generally treated as an aggravating factor. Its powerful influence is shown by the degree to which it
outweighs factors which would normally go in mitigation. Indeed, there is the paradox that some of the strongest factors in mitigation (unblemished career, model citizen, good employment record) are often present in these cases and yet do not tell greatly in the offender’s favour.”

“The reason is that positions of trust are not normally given to individuals unless they have unblemished references, and so the offence may be seen as a betrayal of those very basis of trust, and one of the burdens of a position of trust is an undertaking of incorruptibility.”

12.39pm: Prosecution: “As this Court has observed, each of the accused persons played their respective roles in a conspiracy with intent to cause wrongful loss to CHC and to defraud the auditors.”

“They did not merely wait passively for Kong Hee to instruct them to carry out each specific act and deception needed to drive the conspiracy forward. They took their own initiative to deceive and mislead the trusting members of CHC where necessary, and cannot escape responsibility for those acts.”

12.34pm: Prosecution: “Kong Hee intentionally fostered an organisational culture of
unquestioning trust in relation to the Crossover Project. He did so by capitalising on CHC’s collective fear of external attack in the wake of the Roland Poon incident, convincing members that they ought to simply trust CHC’s leaders to manage the Project without questioning their motives or reasons.”

12.27pm: Prosecution: “The criminal breach of trust offences which the accused persons committed involve the largest amount of charity funds ever misappropriated in Singapore’s legal history.”

“This long-running case involving criminal breach of trust by the most senior managers of a charity has clearly attracted public disquiet, and inevitably affects public confidence that funds donated for charitable purposes, especially to large and well-resourced charities, are managed honestly and properly safeguarded.”

12.11pm: Lawyer Andre Maniam said: “Serina Wee was not a parish priest commanding respect. Until she was charged, most of Singapore did not know who she was.”

“The accused believed it (the usage of the funds) was for an evangelistic purpose that was positively mandated by the vision and mission of CHC.”

11.55am: Serina Wee’s lawyer Andre Maniam said: “This is an unprecedented case. Neither the prosecution nor the defence has been able to turn up a precedent when Criminal Breach of Trust was committed by using a charity’s funds for its own purposes. We are in uncharted waters.”

11.17am: Lawyer N Sreenivasan: “Insofar as personal relationships are concerned, Tan Ye Peng’s former close relationship with Chew Eng Han has been affected. He feels sorry for what happened to Sharon and Serina.”

“He is not, he is not a participant in the heist of the century or other emotional words the prosecution has used.”

[…]

Source: By Vanessa Paige Chelvan, Justin Ong, Wendy Wong, Kimberly Spykerman, City Harvest trial live updates: Leaders sentenced to jail, News 5 and Ngau Kai Yan, Channel News Asia, http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/city-harvest-trial-live/2277418.html, Published 20/11/2015 07:48, UPDATED: 20/11/2015 15:50. (Accessed 20/11/2015.)

 

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Judge See Kee Oon’s assessment over CHC case

23 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by Nailed Truth in C3 & Pringles Associations

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

assessment, case, CHC, Chew Eng Han, City Harvest Church, John Lam, Kong Hee, See Kee Oon, Serina Wee, Serina Wee Gek Yin, Sharon Tan, Tan Shao Yuen Sharon, Tan Ye Peng, trial

All of the CHC six were found guilty of all charges in court on 21st Oct 2015 .

Six Accused

Judge See Kee Oon has published material explaining his judgments and findings.

Judge See Kee Oon

Judge See Kee Oon


IN THE STATE COURTS OF THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE

District Arrest Case 023145 of 2012 and others

Between

Public Prosecutor

And

(1) Lam Leng Hung
(2) Kong Hee
(3) Tan Shao Yuen Sharon
(4) Chew Eng Han
(5) Tan Ye Peng
(6) Serina Wee Gek Yin


ORAL JUDGMENT


PUBLIC PROSECUTOR
V
LAM LENG HUNG & 5 ORS


State Courts — District Arrest Case 023145 of 2012 and others
Presiding Judge See Kee Oon

21 Oct 2015 Judgment reserved.

Presiding Judge See Kee Oon:

Overview

1 This was a 140-day trial involving 43 charges against the 6 accused persons. They were tried primarily on charges of conspiring to commit criminal breach of trust (“CBT”) by dishonestly misappropriating funds belonging to City Harvest Church (“CHC”) that had been entrusted to one or more of them. There are two broad groups of charges involving CBT. The first group comprises the first to third charges and pertains to what have been referred to in the course of the trial as the “sham bond investments”. The second group comprises the fourth to sixth charges, pertaining to what has been termed “round-tripping”. A third group of charges, the seventh to tenth, concerns falsification of accounts in CHC’s books relating to the “round-tripping” transactions.

2 I do not propose to set out the evidence as it is lengthy and voluminous. It suffices to note that the main background facts are largely undisputed or uncontroversial. I will set out my findings in relation to the elements of the offence of CBT first, leaving aside the issue of the mens rea of dishonesty. I will then focus primarily on the extent of the accused persons’ knowledge and involvement in the plans to use funds belonging to CHC for the Crossover Project (“the Crossover”) and on whether their conduct in the circumstances shows that they had acted with dishonest intent.

Criminal breach of trust – elements

3 In relation to the elements of the offence of criminal breach of trust by an agent, leaving aside the mens rea element, I shall state my conclusions briefly. First, I am satisfied that Kong Hee, Tan Ye Peng (“Ye Peng”) and John Lam Leng Hung (“John Lam”) were, as members of CHC’s management board, each entrusted with dominion over CHC’s funds, whether in the Building Fund (“BF”) or the General Fund. Second, I am bound to hold that they were entrusted with such dominion in the way of their business as agents because, being board members, they were so entrusted in their capacities as agents of CHC. Third, I am satisfied that the various plans to use CHC’s funds amounted to putting these funds to unauthorised or wrong use.

“Wrong use” of CHC’s funds

4 The BF was a restricted fund that could be used only for building-related expenses or investments for financial return. I find that the Xtron and Firna bonds were not genuine investments but were a wrong use of the BF. I find also that Tranches 10 and 11 of the Special Opportunities Fund (“SOF”) were not genuine investments but were transactions designed to create the appearance that the Firna bonds had been redeemed. I find, finally, that the payment under the Advance Rental Licence Agreement (“ARLA”) was not abuilding-related expense but was a transaction designed to perpetuate the appearance that the Firna bonds had been redeemed. They were therefore all wrong uses of CHC’s funds.

5 I turn next to the accused persons’ involvement and knowledge in the various plans to use CHC’s funds.

Funding the Crossover – being discreet

6 The accused persons understood that Kong Hee’s preference to be discreet about the funding for the Crossover was for the sake of ensuring the success of the Crossover, but being discreet was also synonymous with non-disclosure and mis-statements. Kong Hee had explained that it was his preference to avoid disclosure of CHC’s involvement in Xtron to avoid any misconception that Sun Ho’s secular music career was “not real” and that CHC was (still) using its money to promote her career. But in relation to both aspects, the evidence shows that it was true that her perceived success was inflated from rather more modest levels and Xtron and the Crossover team had to rely heavily on sponsorship from CHC members or supporters to help prop up her album sales and promote her career. When these sources of financial support which did not directly flow from CHC were insufficient, they had to come up with other means.

Xtron bonds

7 Xtron was CHC’s special purpose vehicle for the Crossover, and for this purpose Xtron was clearly under CHC’s control and not independent. The plan formulated in 2007 was that CHC’s funds, specifically funds from the BF, would be channelled through Xtron to be used for the Crossover, and the use of the funds was controlled entirely by Kong Hee and his team. In truth, this was analogous to an elaborate extension of a pattern of financial assistance via “sponsorship”, lending or prepayment to Xtron that had already either been taking place or been contemplated prior to 2007. These were seen as short-term measures to put Xtron in funds and support the Crossover. The mindset was thus that the Xtron bond issues were only yet another “temporary plan” albeit one which involved borrowing from CHC’s BF, and hoping that the funds would somehow find their way back to CHC at some unspecified future point.

8 Kong Hee, Ye Peng, Chew Eng Han (“Eng Han”) and Serina Wee (“Serina”) each clearly played a substantial role in conceiving and executing this plan to channel CHC’s BF through Xtron for the Crossover. John Lam’s role was evidently less substantial, but I am satisfied that he had his own part to play as a board member and investment committee member. All of them knew that the BF was a restricted fund to be used only for specific purposes. They claim that they believed the Xtron bonds were genuine investments. They believed the Xtron bonds would bring CHC financial return. But on my evaluation of the evidence I consider that the prosecution has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that they did not hold that belief.

9 I find that the accused persons were planning on the basis of Sun Ho’s planned US Crossover album being realistically capable of generating sales of

only 200,000 units, and although their projections showed that the bonds could not be redeemed by the maturity date, they were unconcerned since Eng Han assured them that the maturity date for the bonds could always be extended or fresh bonds could be issued. I am unconvinced that they could have had a genuine belief in Sun Ho’s prospects of success for the US Crossover given their consciousness that much of her earlier success was contrived and contributed to by CHC itself. Serina readily conceded that Sun Ho’s Asian Crossover albums all made losses and Xtron had thus incurred substantial accumulated net losses. Kong Hee, Ye Peng, Eng Han and John Lam also knew that CHC was involved in propping up her Mandarin album sales. I am unable to see how there can be any genuine or honest grounds for their claims that they expected far higher sales for her planned US album well in excess of the projection of 200,000 units. This was no more than an optimistic hope. It was definitely not a realistic expectation. All this strongly militates against their claims that the Xtron bonds were motivated by the realistic prospect of financial return and were genuine investments.

10 Further, the accused persons were all involved in making plans to put Xtron in funds to redeem the bonds. They knew that these plans would involve CHC paying money to Xtron under the guise of legitimate transactions, when in fact the real concern was Xtron’s cashflow difficulties and the purported transactions were mere excuses for CHC to channel money to Xtron. Thus they knew that there was a strong possibility that the apparent financial return under the Xtron bonds would come from CHC itself. This knowledge further undermines their claim that they believed the Xtron bonds were a genuine investment.

11 In addition, the accused persons hid or obscured material information from others. Eng Han and John Lam kept the truth about the Xtron bonds from Charlie Lay. All of them at various times gave the auditors the impression that CHC and Xtron were independent of each other, when they knew that Kong Hee in fact made all decisions on Xtron’s behalf in relation to the Crossover without reference to the Xtron directors, who were mere figureheads. The auditors were not told that Xtron was in fact controlled by Kong Hee and Ye Peng and that they together with their co-accused would exercise control over the use of the bond proceeds. There is no doubt that they knew that they had something to hide.

12 In all the circumstances, I am satisfied that the accused persons knew that the Xtron bonds were conceived first and foremost to support the Crossover and not for financial return. The prospect of any financial return was a secondary consideration at best and even then I do not accept that they genuinely believed that the sale of Sun Ho’s music albums would generate sufficient profit for CHC to enjoy financial return. They knew that any financial return to CHC might be illusory in the sense that it was CHC’s own money that might need to be channelled to Xtron to redeem the bonds. Given their knowledge, I cannot accept their claims that they believed the Xtron bonds were a genuine investment. Accordingly, they caused CHC to subscribe to $13 million in Xtron bonds knowing that they were not legally entitled to do so. Thus they acted dishonestly, and I find that the first and second charges have been made out against John Lam, Kong Hee, Eng Han, Ye Peng and Serina.

Firna bonds

13 In respect of the Firna bonds, the accused persons all knew that the primary purpose of the bonds was also to channel money from CHC’s BF to the Crossover. Kong Hee, Ye Peng, Eng Han and Serina knew that they, and not Wahju, were the ones controlling the Firna bond proceeds and deciding how the proceeds should be applied towards the Crossover. Yet they took the inaccurate position that Wahju was somehow “independently” supporting the Crossover using his “personal monies”, and this was what they told the auditors and lawyers. They knew that the financial return under the Firna bonds would not come from the profits of Firna’s glass factory business but depended entirely on the success of the Crossover. If the revenue from Sun Ho’s albums was not adequate, they would find alternative sources of funds for Firna, and that might include channelling CHC’s own money into Firna through various means. Given this knowledge, I do not think Kong Hee, Eng Han, Ye Peng and Serina could have believed that the Firna bonds would generate financial return for CHC, and so they could not have believed that the bonds were a genuine investment.

14 John Lam was further removed from the Firna bonds than the other accused persons. But he signed the “secret letter” that secured the signature of Wahju’s father-in-law on the Firna BSA. I am satisfied that he knew that the prospect of financial return for CHC did not depend on the success of Firna’s glass factory business. He knew that it was a very real possibility that the Crossover would not be profitable. Thus I find that he too did not believe that the Firna bonds would generate financial return for CHC, meaning that he did not think the bonds were a genuine investment.

15 Therefore, in causing CHC to subscribe to $11 million in Firna bonds, the accused persons knew that they were not legally entitled to do so. They thus acted dishonestly. As such, I find that the third charge has been made out against John Lam, Kong Hee, Eng Han, Ye Peng and Serina.

16 At the centre of the first to third charges is how the BF came to be applied for the Crossover when it was a restricted fund for specific purposes – either for building or investment. In my judgment, the Crossover was not one of these purposes. It was not an investment since by their own characterisation, it was meant to serve a “missions” purpose all along. I am not convinced that there was any “mixed motive”, “dual purpose” or “hybrid” intent behind the use of the BF. These are creative labels tacked on in an attempt to strain and stretch the plain meaning of the word “investment”. They were plainly fabricated in an attempt to justify their past conduct and misuse of the BF. I do not see how they can be said to have acted in good faith in relation to the charges they face.

17 The accused persons have of course pointed to the fact that the money did come back to CHC with interest. However, this is patently due to their efforts to put Xtron, Firna and AMAC in funds to facilitate these repayments through the round-tripping transactions. It does not confirm that there was any actual intention at the outset to invest for the purpose of maximising returns. What is more telling is that it was consistently represented to CHC’s Executive Members that investing the BF in this fashion was meant to maximise returns. There was no mention at all that the investment was in the Crossover, let alone that it was for “spiritual returns” or for both spiritual and financial return from the Crossover. The failure to mention those facts buttresses my conclusion that the accused persons knew that they were not legally entitled to cause CHC to enter into the Xtron and Firna bonds.

Round-tripping and falsification of accounts

18 As revealed by the evidence adduced at trial, there was never any financial “return” derived from any of Xtron’s and Firna’s Crossover-related activities. Instead, when the time came to deal with the auditors’ queries and to address Sim Guan Seng’s concerns, they resorted to removing more funds from the BF and also the General Fund under the pretext of making further “investments” into Tranches 10 and 11 of the SOF and purportedly for a building purchase by Xtron through the ARLA. The round-tripping transactions were crafted to create the appearance that these were genuine transactions involving the redemption of bonds when they were not. They were not genuine transactions because the accused persons controlled these transactions every step of the way, and the substance of it was that CHC was channelling money through various conduits in order to pay itself.

19 Given that Ye Peng, Eng Han, Serina and Sharon Tan (“Sharon”) were fully aware of the whole series of transactions, they could not have believed that Tranches 10 and 11 of the SOF were genuine investments, or that the payment under ARLA was a building-related expense. They say that they viewed all this as “restructuring”, but that to my mind is fundamentally inconsistent with a belief that the transactions were genuine investments or building-related expenses, and this inability to provide a coherent explanation for their conduct strongly suggests that they knew they were not legally entitled to cause CHC to enter into these transactions. They may have apprised the CHC board of an earlier version of the transactions, but they kept that knowledge from the lawyers and the auditors. Taking into account all the circumstances, I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the fourth to sixth charges have been made out against them.

20 I am also satisfied that there was falsification of CHC’s accounts following from the attempts to disguise the SOF and ARLA transactions as genuine transactions. In relation to the ninth charge, the accounting entry recording a redemption of Xtron bonds in the form of a set-off against advance rental was false, because it was not a case of CHC and Xtron making independent decisions to pay advance rental on one hand and redeem bonds on the other. I find that the accused persons knew that false accounting entries would have to be made pursuant to their plan to create the appearance of redemption of bonds, and hence I find that they each had intent to defraud. I am therefore satisfied that the seventh to tenth charges have been made out against Ye Peng, Eng Han, Serina and Sharon.

Objective evidence and inferences

21 I note that there was an extensive record which comprised an elaborate patchwork of emails, Blackberry messages, phone SMSs, hard copy documents and numerous other documented exchanges in some form or other. The fact that there was a mass of available evidence which when woven together amounted to a paper trail is not necessarily indicative of innocence. In my view insofar as much of it was incriminating, it is more suggestive of a mindset of presumptuousness or boldness, demonstrating that the accused persons were overconfident in their belief that they could replace the funds in time before suspicions were aroused.

22 The case against the accused persons depended heavily on inferences to be drawn from the objective evidence. Much of these inferences can be readily drawn as the tenor and language in the communications adduced at trial strongly point to their dishonest intent. In short, the documentary evidence goes a long way in demonstrating their subjectively guilty knowledge. I am not convinced that they have raised any reasonable doubt in this regard.

23 I find that the accused persons were variously inextricably entangled in two conspiracies to misuse CHC’s funds. One conspiracy consisted of misusing BF monies for the Crossover, and the other involved misusing CHC’s funds, a substantial portion of which comprised BF monies, to create the appearance of bond redemptions and to defraud the auditors via falsified accounts through the various roles they played. Each of them participated and functioned in their own way as crucial cogs in the machinery. Although there are distinctions in their respective levels of knowledge and participation, I am unable to discern any rational basis to exclude any of them from being implicated and characterised as conspirators.

Beliefs, motives and mindsets

24 Much of the defence centred on the beliefs and motivations of the accused persons. If it can be shown that they genuinely, honestly and reasonably held the view that what they were doing was legitimate in the sense that they were legally entitled to do it, and they went ahead to act in good faith as a result, I think there may well be room for doubt as to whether they had acted dishonestly. The weight of the evidence however points to a finding that they knew they were acting dishonestly and I am unable to conclude otherwise.

25 Where professional advice was sought, this was really mainly an attempt to seek out self-supporting confirmatory advice based on selectively-
disclosed information. They omitted mention of the crucial fact that CHC remained in control of Xtron and would correspondingly control the use of the funds. They provided leading questions for belief confirmation and support from only those advisors whom they trusted to support the Crossover vision and were quick to reject or filter out any disconfirming information.

26 The accused persons chose to support the Crossover vision and to act and participate in acts in support of it. The Crossover became a comprehensive logic for justifying their beliefs and actions, and for doing whatever was expedient for its advancement. The pervasive mindset seemed to be one of short-term expediency; the use of means involving dubious methods was worth the risk to them if there was some hope of longer-term gain.

Conclusion

27 In their defence, all the accused persons testified largely to the same effect: they love CHC and would not have wished to do harm to CHC. They never intended to cause loss to CHC. They consulted and cleared their proposals with their lawyers, the auditors and the CHC Board. They were motivated by CHC’s cultural mandate and they believed in the Crossover vision. They pointed to pure motives and a justifiable purpose in the use of CHC’s funds. Ultimately the funds which were removed were for Church purposes and were returned to CHC.

28 The crux of their defence was that there was no conspiracy and no dishonesty. All six would never intend to cause harm or loss to CHC and the ultimate objectives were in furtherance of the Great Commission. It may be arguable that all of them thought they were not acting dishonestly to cause wrongful loss since no permanent loss was intended, but this was premised on their unquestioning trust and belief in Kong Hee and their confidence that the Crossover would succeed. Thus they convinced themselves that it was both morally and legally permissible to temporarily use the money from CHC’s funds when they knew it was not.

29 The accused persons chose to engage in covert operations and conspiratorial cover-ups. They contrived to create cover stories and clever round-trips concealing their unlawful conduct. They chose to participate in the conspiracy to misuse CHC’s funds, which included siphoning off large amounts from the BF for Sun Ho’s music career and eventually for the round-tripping transactions to enable the bond redemptions. They chose to defraud the auditors with falsified accounts suggesting a series of genuine transactions for the redemption of bonds and advance rental. The evidence points overwhelmingly to a finding that they had all acted dishonestly and in breach of the trust reposed in them and they played their respective roles in a conspiracy with intent to cause wrongful loss to CHC and to defraud the auditors.

30 I am therefore satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the six accused persons are guilty of all the charges that have been brought against them. I note that all of them believed that they had acted in what they considered to be the best interests of CHC. There is no evidence of any wrongful gain – that was never the prosecution’s case in any event as the charges were premised on wrongful loss caused to CHC through the misappropriation of CHC’s funds.

31 I consider that John Lam, Eng Han, Serina and Sharon were all acting in accordance with the instructions of people they considered to be their spiritual leaders deserving of their trust and deference, and Ye Peng, although a leader in his own right, similarly trusted completely the leadership of Kong Hee. But no matter how pure the motive or how ingrained the trust in one’s leaders, regardless of the context in which that trust operates, these do not exonerate an accused person from criminal liability if all the elements of an offence are made out. In my judgment all the elements of the relevant offences have indeed been made out. Accordingly, the accused persons stand convicted as follows:

(a) John Lam is convicted on the first to third charges;

(b) Kong Hee is convicted on the first to third charges;

(c) Sharon is convicted on the fourth to tenth charges;

(d) Eng Han is convicted on the first to tenth charges;

(e) Ye Peng is convicted on the first to tenth charges; and

(f) Serina is convicted on the first to tenth charges.


Source: PDF, https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3A-00dAvijTNXAyaGEyLUtZdW8/view?pli=1. (Accessed 23/10/2015.)

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An Insightful Analysis To The CHC System (Part 6)

27 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by Nailed Truth in C3 & Pringles Associations

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

CHC, Chew Eng Han, City Harvest Church, crossover, crossover project, John Lam, Kong Hee, marc ronez, Ronez, Sun Ho, Tan Ye Peng

Kong Hee says about CHC, Phil Pringle and the C3 Church Movement,

“You can’t talk about City Harvest Church without talking about C3. Or Christian City Church. You know Pastor Phil has been there for me; praying with me; encouraging me; discipling me; telling me how to do the work of the ministry; taught me how to collect an offering; how to give an altar call; how to build a church; build a team. So Pastor Phil, from the depth of my heart, for Sun and myself, we wouldn’t be where we are today without you and Pastor Chris. Let’s give Pastor Phil and Pastor Chris a big clap.” – Kong Hee, Kong Hee, Session 8: (00:24), Presence Conference 2010.

The above quote is something to think about while reading the below article. Before reading this sixth article, make sure you have read his earlier articles:

An Insightful Analysis To The CHC System (Part 1)
An Insightful Analysis To The CHC System (Part 2)
An Insightful Analysis To The CHC System (Part 3)
An Inisghtful Analysis To The CHC System (Part 4)
An Insightful Analysis To The CHC System (Part 5)

Marc Ronez is back! Here is Ronez’s sixth article analysing the CHC situation:

City Harvest Case part 6: The Smog of the Crossover Financing

The revelations about the large sums of money (tens of millions of dollars) used liberally to finance Sun Ho’s failed attempt to breakthrough on the U.S. music scene and about her carefree, luxury lifestyle, have shocked many City Harvest Church members, the christians community at large and even the wider public. Reading through online forums, it is clear that many people felt that the amounts spent were extravagant and questioned what this “U.S. pop star adventure” had really got to do with the Christian evangelisation project it proclaimed to be.

The important questions we should ask and aim to answer here are:

– Who actually paid for the Crossover Project?

– How was the financing practically arranged? 

– Why was it done this way?

The financing of the Crossover project is one of the most important issues we have to examine in my series of posts about the CHC case because this is where we can possibly confirm or disprove most clearly the deception and fraudulent intent of the CHC leaders being prosecuted. This issue of financing is at the center of the prosecution case in the ongoing trial as without it, there would be no case to be answered. So let’s now explore the key issues in detail.

1 – WHO paid for the Crossover Project?

From the COC Report, the CAD investigations, the trial proceedings and even by the own admissions of the defendants including Pastor Kong Hee himself, it has been confirmed very CLEARLY that Sun Ho music career and U.S. Crossover had essentially been financed by CHC church funds.

This is now a fact recognised by everybody. However according to the prosecution, this very fact had, for many years, been kept under cover by the CHC leadership and actually the prosecuted CHC leaders are today “in the dock” precisely because they have “deliberately schemed to conceal the movement and use of church funds [for the crossover] from church members”.

Indeed from the facts and testimonies brought to light during the court proceeding and cross examinations, it has been revealed that the general body of the Church members were actually led to believe that Sun Ho’s crossover was NOT financed by the church. As Chew Eng Han (CHC former investment manager) pointed out during his cross-examination of Pastor Kong Hee a few days ago, the Senior Pastor of CHC apparently preferred to keep the Crossover funding “indirect and discreet“. For many years, Pastor Kong Hee never publicly mentioned anything about any kind of Church Financing for Sun Ho’s U.S. Crossover. Quite on the contrary in fact, as with much fanfare, he had claimed in 2005 in front of the church congregation that Sun Ho had been “invited” to the United States by a major music record company who offered her a US 5 million dollar contract. On hearing the news, the church members cheered with the comforting belief  that this was miracle from God who was opening doors for Sun Ho and a clear proof that God was supporting her Crossover to the secular music world. Everybody listening also naturally assumed that this contract would finance her salary and the production of her future U.S. singles and albums. Over the years, Pastor Kong Hee repeatedly claimed that his wife was a pop star, that she was very successful in her music career collecting many accolades and awards in the process. He even joked on occasions that she was making a lot more more money than him. He had also stressed that while Sun Ho was “shining for Christ” in the music world, she had officially been released from ministry, and hence her music career was her own business completely independent from the Church. Theofficial story CHC members were fed with was that she had largely financed her music career and  U.S. breakthrough attempt with what she was earning from her recording contract and royalties from her previous albums and singles. While in the church, some members knew that the church was providing some form of support to Sun Ho’s crossover and sometimes were even involved in it, very few were really aware of the full extent of this support  and most members did not bother to ask any questions for the reasons explained in my previous posts  “City Harvest Case Part 2 – If there is a Fraud what would be the Motives?”  and  “City Harvest Case Part 3 – The Opportunity Makes The Thief“, relating to PRESSURES and OPPORTUNITIES factors in unethical decision-making.

Unfortunately the reality was very different from what was then the “official” CHC storyline. Sun Ho’s business activities were not doing so well, her royalties from previous albums and singles were drying up and in fact, her earlier musical successes had been “grossly exaggerated“ according to Chew Eng Han who pointed out and provided documentary evidences to prove that “all the while Church money was spent to boost Sun Ho’s CD sales and her position on the music charts“, furthermore CHC members were encouraged to buy her albums and even to buy more than one copy, in fact as many copies as possible. They were told by their cell group leaders that they could give the additional CDs to bless their families and friends. It was also revealed during cross-examination of former CHC board member John Lam that CHC had spent about half a million dollars buying at least 32,000 copies of Sun Ho’s unsold CDs supposedly to bless other congregations around Asia with Sun Ho’s music. Did these congregations really asked for her music? Finally the famous US 5 million dollar recording contract offer mentioned above actually never materialised simply because it never existed in the first place except in the fertile imagination of Pastor Kong Hee as explained in my previous post “City Harvest Case part 5: CHC’s Crossover or Sun Ho’s Crossover“. Hence with not enough money of her own to finance her American music adventure, it must have been quite clear from the beginning for the CHC leadership that for Sun Ho’s crossover to materialise, it had to be financed by the church. That meant with the money received from its faithful members.

 2 – HOW was the Crossover financing arranged?

From the COC Report, the CAD investigations and the trial proceedings, it has been further revealed that the financing of the Crossover was arranged using a variety of indirect and often rather complicated schemes. I would list the key ones as follows:

1. The Xtron Productions & Firna SGD 24 million Bonds,
2. The SGD 3.6 million Multi-Purpose Account (“MPA”),
3. The CHCKL (CHC Kuala Lumpur)  SGD 2.1 million “Love gift”.

Let’s examine now the various financing channels more closely in order to answer the HOW question:

CHANNEL 1: The Xtron Productions & Firna Bonds

Instead of trying to get a strong mandate from Church members in order to be able to invest directly Church funds into the Crossover project, the prosecuted CHC leaders decided that CHC would do it indirectly by investing in Bonds issued by Xtron productions and Firna using the monies from the building fund. Like for any Bond mechanism, an interest and a maturity date for the principal repayment was agreed between the parties involved. Then from 2007 to 2009 S$ 13 million and S$ 11 million (a total of S$ 24 million) were transferred from the church building fund  in several tranches as part of the bonds purchase agreement with those 2 companies. But those were not ordinary bonds. The catch was that Xtron had been set up primarily to organise the financing of and manage Sun Ho’s music career. And Firna belongs to Indonesian businessman and long-time CHC member, Wahju Hanafi, who had agreed to support the crossover project. So in order to raise the necessary funds, Xtron and Firna had issued a series of bonds that were then bought by CHC, meaning that effectively Xtron & Firna took loans from CHC. The proceeds of the bonds was then used to finance the various expenses related to the crossover project and Sun Ho’s music actitivities.

The problem is that the COC and prosecution consider that the SGD 24 millions were ILLEGALLY diverted from the church building fund.  According to COC and prosecution, the deception comes from the fact that the transactions were presented as regular bond investments and that apart from the persons incriminated, the other board members, the executive members and the ordinary members were not told of the actual purpose of the bonds which was to fund Sun Ho attempt to breakthrough on the U.S. music scene. Furthermore the prosecution and trial proceedings have also highlighted the complete lack of independence of Xtron from CHC and the multiple problematic conflict of interests in the management of Xtron.

The COC and prosecution also claimed that when the external auditor started to raise difficult questions about the above mentioned Xtron & Firna bonds, the prosecuted leaders rushed to arrange another transfer of about SGD 26 million to make it look like the bond had been properly redeemed, hence the so-called “round-tripping”.

The prosecuted CHC leaders and  City Harvest Church have disputed the allegations that the church was cheated of any money, claiming that the Board of CHC had the full authority to decide how to best invest the available church funds (including the monies of the building funds) and that all decisions were made following proper procedures further claiming that eventually all the sums invested had been repaid in full to the church with the agreed interest.

So did anything wrong happen? Was it illegal? Well considering that there is a trial going on precisely looking at the legality of those transactions, the judge will obviously have the final say about what is legal and what is not. However based on the information available, I would like to make a few observations:

– Bonds are just financial instruments. They are like any tools. You can put them to a good or a bad use. So we should not blame the tools, it is the users who are responsible. The purpose of a bond is to allow organisations who need funds to be able to borrow them from the organisations who have excess cash and wish to invest that cash to get a return. While usually considered safer than investing in shares because of the fixed interest rate and the commitnent to return the capital in full after a fixed term, bonds are not without risks. There is always the possibility that the company issuing the bond could go bankrupt and hence being unable to repay the principal leaving the investors without recourse “naked in the cold”.

– Firna & Xtron bonds should have been categorised as high risk (i.e. junk) bonds. First as exposed during trial proceedings Firna was having cash flow issues & Xtron seems to have been a financially weak and troubled organisation. Second the proceeds of the bonds were to be used for an extremely high risk project, i.e. launching the career of a modestly successful Asian pop artist in the U.S.

– Furthermore, it was mentioned during the trial proceedings that the “interest rate that Firna was paying to CHC was lower than what the company would have been able to get from banks“. So here we find out that not only CHC was investing in “Junk bonds” but the church did not even get the high interests than usually compensate for the high risk taken. In fact, it appears that CHC was shortchanged with a lower than market interest rate.

– Another “twist” in the CHC case, is that there was a complete confusion of roles between the borrower Xtron and the lender CHC. The trial proceedings and cross-examinations have highlighted the near complete lack of independence of Xtron from CHC: First the directors of Xtron were handpicked by Pastor Tan Ye Peng and Pastor Kong Hee and were insiders and loyal followers of the CHC Senior Pastor. Second Serina Wee, former CHC finance Manager, appears to have had “her hands” in the accounts of all 3 organisations CHC, Firna and Xtron and was reporting directly to Pastor Tan and Pastor Kong Hee. Finally most of, if not all, the important decisions about the Crossover were made directly by Pastor Kong Hee and his wife Sun Ho and were then rubber stamped by CHC and Xtron quite LITERALLY as it has been revealed during cross examination that actual rubber stamps of key signatories were created and used.

– Chew Eng Han, in his role of CHC investment manager, came up with and arranged the bonds scheme as a solution to the desire of Pastor Kong Hee  (Senior Pastor of CHC) to keep the funding of the Crossover “indirect and discreet”. Hence the issue was not about raising money for the Crossover, rather it was about transferring it quietly from the  building fund. Based on the above mentioned considerations, we can conclude that the way the bonds were arranged  constitutes clearly a perveteduse of the bond mechanism.

There are at least 2 other financing channels that while not part of the current prosecution case are worth mentioning as they may also shed some light on the intend of the parties involved.

CHANNEL 2: The Multi-Purpose Account (“MPA”)

The existence of the MPA, a private fund that was set up and was used to pay for Sun Ho and Kong Hee private expenditures between 2006 and 2010, was first exposed to light by the COC report in 2010.  More recently under Cross-examination by Chew Eng Han, Pastor Kong Hee was given an opportunity to explain himself about it and he declared: “The MPA was set up by some of Xtron donors in 2006 to support Sun and my livelihood in the mission field because at the end of 2005 both of us went off church payroll.” He also added that ” secondarily it was set up for us to use it for Crossover-related expenses…” Initially 28 couples and a few individuals were approached and enlisted as MPA donors.

First, we may wonder what were really Pastor Kong Hee expenses in the mission field?  This a fair question as it has been revealed during the trial proceedings that his business class flight expenses were mostly paid by the church, his luxury hotel accommodation expenses were either paid by CHC or by the church inviting him, his large support staff and equipment were provided by CHC and finally, quite a number of mission trips consisted of   lucrative paid preaching engagements in other mega churches. Sun Ho on her side, was paid by Xtron for “her efforts” for the Crossover. So did they really need more money?

Second, according to the COC report, a total of S$3.6 millions were collected through the MPA fund over a three and half years period. This translates to about S$1 million per year to share between Sun Ho and Kong Hee. A more than substantial “compensation” for “going off the church payroll”. The actual use of the funds while supposedly dedicated to the crossover project and other mission trips was in practice completely non-transparent and left to the entire discretion of Pastor Kong Hee and his wife.  In essence they did whatever they wanted with the money and did not have to be accountable to anybody.

From testimonies received from various MPA donors, it appears that Pastor Kong Hee did not just wait for donors to give, he proactively approached them to “encourage” them to give more. In his cross examination of Pastor Kong Hee, Chew Eng Han highlighted an incident that in his opinion, demonstrates both Pastor Kong Hee eagerness to collect always more money as well as his willingness to use deceptive meansto do so.

Chew Eng Han mentioned a meeting that was held with the MPA donors in 2010 where Pastor Kong Hee showed them a spreadsheet aimed to demonstrate that the givings received from the donors were not enough to cover his and Sun’s expenses. The spreadsheet showed a deficit of about half a million dollars for 2009. The donors were then given a pledge form and strongly encouraged to give more.

The problem, according to Chew Eng Han, is that the total amount of donations collected of S$512,000 that was mentioned in the spreadsheet for 2009 was minus of royalties and salaries paid to Sun. Hence the true amount collected was in fact S$952,000. Hence CEH claimed that Pastor Kong Hee misled the MPA donors to think that the collections amount was much lower than what it was. This misrepresentation is indeed very troubling and we can speculate that they were possibly 2 reasons to explain it. Pastor Kong Hee may have wanted:

1. to make the MPA donors feel bad about the “low” collection amount and the deficit and compel them to give more

2. to hide the extravagant salary and royalties (S$ 400,000) given to Sun Ho that he was apparently was finding hard to justify

Another issue highlighted in the COC report is the claim that the donors enlisted in the MPA were told that they could “transfer their contributions originally meant for the Church’s building fund to the MPA and hence they ceased or reduced their regular tithes to the church after they contributed funds to the MPA”. This claim was confirmed by direct testimonies of MPA donors. COC report further claims that apart from the small group of donors, the existence of the MPA was concealed to the rest of the Church’s members and great care put in keeping it this way.

This is a highly problematic point here as this would mean that the creation of the MPA directly and negatively impacted the level of contributions of the MPA donors to the tithes and to the building fund. In other words, form a practical perspective, Pastor Kong Hee and Sun Ho did not really go off church payroll as without the MPA, the funds they received would have gone to the church. So in essence, the funds they got from the MPA for their living expenses, i.e. “salaries”  were indirectly taken from the church. But this time without in forms of control or scrutiny on the amount and use they could make of it. A much “better deal” for Pastor Kong Hee and Sun Ho. Definitely NOT a good one for the church.

To conclude, while some CHC members and the wider public may be shocked by this MPA account (and the large sums involved), we should stress that from a legal point of view, people can donate their money to whoever they wish to, be the tithes, the building fund or the MPA or anything else and they do not need to publicize what is essentially a private transaction. While the attempt of the CHC leaders to hide the MPA from the rest of the CHC members shows their embarrassment and clearly raise some serious ethical questions. Based on the information currently available, it is hard to find a really solid legal ground for the prosecution to charge the CHC leaders based on the MPA transactions. We need to keep in mind that something unethical may not necessarily be illegal. The MPA donors themselves would have a better case and could try to sue Pastor Kong Hee and Sun Ho if they have given or increase their donations due the misreprsentation of facts mentioned in this section.

Finally CHANNEL 3: The CHCKL ‘Love Gift’ or ‘Transfer’

Another way the CHC leadership used to finance the crossover project was to encourage financial support, i.e. “love gifts” from other churches with whom CHC has established friendly relationships, partnerships and even affiliations. Over the years, many churches have contributed financially to CHC projects including the crossover project. Similarly CHC has contributed financially to many other churches’ important projects such as building funds and so on.

The first issue here is again related to the fact that the use of the funds provided by the “love gifts” has been completely non-transparent and left to the entire discretion of Pastor Kong Hee and Sun Ho. While supposedly dedicated to the crossover project, there was in practice no ways for the donors to check how the money was used and no accountability whatsoever.

The second issue is that while these “give and receive” contributions between churches are a natural part of relationship and partnership building efforts, there is always a risk of abuse when  they become formalised, transactional and conditional, i.e. “I give you this ONLY if you give me that..”

According to the COC report, some of the prosecuted CHC leaders have crossed the red line when between December 2007 and May 2010, some S$2.1 millions from CHC were channeled to the U.S. crossover project via an affiliated church in Malaysia (City Harvest Church Kuala Lumpur, CHCKL). In the CHC accounts, the funds transferred are recorded as a donation to the building fund of CHCKL. However the COC report claims that the same funds were actually then transmitted by CHCKL to support the Crossover Project in the United States under the guise of a love gift. The COC investigations apparently revealed that clear instructions were given via email by some of the accused CHC Leaders in Singapore to CHCKL to transfer the so-called “donations” to the Crossover in the U.S. disguised as “love gifts” and hence exposing the true purpose of the original “donations”.

If there is clear written evidences that support the claims of the COC report, this would be a very serious accusation as it would give another clear evidence of deception and wrongdoing from the persons involved in the transactions. But without such evidences, it would difficult to prove anything as these reciprocal “give and take” transactions are actually quite common place between.  While we may speculate about the intentions of the parties involved when we can observe those “give and take transactions”, it is hard to prove the fraudulent intent without clear and documented instructions that reveal that actual intent.

3 – WHY was the Crossover Financing arranged in the indirect, complicated and non-transparentmanner described in the previous section?

It is worth to note that the key issue under scrutiny at the CHC trial, i.e. the financing of the Crossover, has been carefully eluded by CHC leaders in their public statements. The fact that investigations and then the court case were underway has repeatedly been used as an excuse to diffuse requests for more information and more disclosure on the Crossover financing. When the public and church members asked questions about the financing, the standard CHC leadership’s response has been to say, “Please understand that we cannot disclose more about issues that are under scrutiny in this trial. Do not make pre-judgment. Let our case be heard in court at the right place and time.“

So well now finally, it is the time and actually the last opportunity for Pastor Kong Hee and the other prosecuted CHC leaders to tell their version of the truth before court judgment is passed and I would like to ask them a few simple questions:

– Why use various and often complicated schemes to arrange the financing for the Crossover project?
– Why not do it directly and transparently?
– Why keep church members in the dark and even misleading them for many years about the financing of the Crossover project?

As already mentioned, Pastor Kong Hee admitted during cross examination that he preferred to keep the funding “indirect and discreet” despite Chew Eng Han’s and fellow CHC board member John Lam’s suggestion for a direct and open funding for the crossover project.

When asked during cross examination what were the reasons behind his resistance to open and direct funding of the Crossover project and his preference for indirect and discreet financing arrangements, Pastor Kong Hee,  provided over time essentially 3 lines of reasoning to justify his choices:

Objective 1: Protect the church financial position

As technically the church did not directly finance Sun Ho’s Crossover, as the funds were invested into Corporate Bonds that were supposed to be repaid in full at a certain date with interest. Hence they can claim that no actual money was spent on the Crossover project from the Church, that there was only profits to be earned from the interests received. The Board could rationalize that they were prudent with this approach avoiding the Church to be exposed to the possible losses resulting from Sun Ho’s albums failure to generate sales. In such a case, the losses would have to be covered by Xtron and Firna.

Critical view: The problem is that protection can be an illusion if the risk of borrowers going bankrupt is high and hence are unable to repay the principal, the church would loose all the money invested. On the other hand, despite taking most of the financial risks, with a bond mechanism, CHC would only have received the unrest income and would not have benefited from the upside in case Sun Ho’s album had been successful. In other words, profits were to be privatised for Sun Ho’s benefits, while losses would have ultimately to be covered by the church and its members.

Objective 2: Protect the Crossover Project

Pastor Kong Hee said he felt the Crossover project would fail if Sun Ho was seen as being openly backed by a church. He was concerned that she could be categorised as a Gospel Singer or that exposing too openly her christian evangelization agenda would generate tremendous opposition in the non-christian world. Particularly in countries like China, a Christian label would have been a non-starter. And even in the U.S., there are quite a lot of negative views about religions.  Hence Sun Ho had to go “undercover” and while she was indirectly financed by the church, she had to keep quiet about it. She was supposed to be a secular singer, singing secular songs, on secular labels. Furthermore people could have the “misconception” that “Sun’s popularity was not real”, and that the “church was using its funds to promote one of its members’ career”, he said.

Critical view: The issue was not about pasting a Christian label on Sun Ho’s forehead , advertising on it.  But ensure a proper and strong mandate from the people who provided the financing, at the very least, theentire board and the Executive member should have been approached to approve the financing of the project and the ordinary members should have been informed.

Objective 3: Protect the church members’ peace of mind

The Roland Poon affair in 2003 with the allegations that CHC was using its funds to promote the senior pastor’s wife music career subjected the church to massive amount of criticisms and attacks from the media and the general public. While Roland Poon retracted his accusations and apologised,  the whole event created a lot of disstressing turmoils and confusions in the church. As Pastor Kong Hee shared in court, “the reality of life is such that you cannot manage and control what’s happening in the public domain. So it was more a wake-up call for us, that we’ve got to be very careful what we share.”  Pastor Kong Hee felt it was important to protect church members from such negative environment in the future. Hence moving forward, the board members decided that the church should not directly financially support the Crossover project and should be more careful about what information can be shared publicly with the church members about the crossover project. Therefore revealing  publicly that Sun Ho’s crossover would now be funded indirectly after having just made representations that “no church funds had been used to support Sun Ho’s career” would invite another round of unwanted scrutiny and negative reactions.

Critical view: This line of reasoning is hard to understand as precisely after the Roland Poon affair, CHC should have wanted to build and get a very strong mandate from its members for the Crossover project. And if they could not get the mandate they should not have done it. It is very demeaning Pastor Kong Hee to assume that the church members are so weak that they will break and run away under the weight of external criticisms aboutCHC leadership’s actions if those criticisms are not justified. And it is wrong to deceive church members about the actual use of the money the Church has received from them for a specific purpose i.e. acquiring a new church building. There is not peace of mind in deception.

An Hidden Agenda?

As a risk management and governance practitioner, I have investigated a wide range of fraud cases over the years, and based on my experience,  when I observe the diversity and complexity of some of the schemes used to finance the Crossover project, this is a “Red flag” and a source of concern for me. Let me explain why in simple terms. When you need or want to finance something and you have the choice between 2 approaches to do it:

1. a more simple and transparent financing solution such as openly and directly raising or at least allocating funds for the crossover project with all the relevant stakeholder’s kept in the loop and,

2. a complicated and indirect way such as investing in multiple bonds with specially created and controlled or friendly partners’ companies, creating special private accounts to receive funds from various parties , and so on while excluding many important stakeholders from the loop.

And you choose the complicated and indirect way, it usually means that you have an hidden agenda. There is something you want to be able to do away from prying eyes. This is what appear to have happened in the CHC case, as what the CHC leaders have done is to practically create an organisational BLACK BOX.  As the name indicate, the purpose of a “black box” is to prevent any form of unwanted scrutiny by allowing the people inside it to conceal their activities from external parties. The practical key objectives are to ensure:

1. Lack of Control: Prevent important stakeholders from being able to CONTROL what is happening in the black box as formal decisions authority has been delegated to the people in charge of the black box.

2. Lack of Transparency: Prevent important stakeholders from being able to KNOW what is happening inside the black box as information is intentionally not shared or misleading, or the situation is too complicated to have the full picture of what is going on. For example, Sun Ho apparently received large amounts of money for her living expenses from at least three different  sources: Xtron, the MPA and the CHCKL gift. People aware of one source may not have been kept in the loop about the other sources.

Within the black box, Pastor Kong Hee, Sun Ho and other CHC leaders could use the money received at their entire discretion with little control and no accountability to anyone. The danger is that without scrutiny and accountability, the people inside the black box will be tempted to take advantage of the situation for their own benefits as I will explain in the next section.

Using CHC to create a Private Cash Distributor

The COC report, the CAD investigations, the court proceedings and in particular the cross examinations have shed some very unsavory light on a range of practices and a system that we could characterise as a form of “Cash Distributor system”for the benefits of a few private parties.  I will illustrate it focussing on the case of Pastor Kong Hee because while many others were involved, he is the leader of the Church and hence holds ultimate responsibility for the system that was put in place.

When Pastor Kong Hee decided to go off Church payroll in 2005, declaring that he would by faith rely on his private business activities which included royalties from his book writing, CDs, revenues from his retailing business and so on, church members applauded with respectful deference as they interpreted his decision of working for the body of Christ without salary as an act self-sacrifice, a selfless commitment to God’s kingdom. In fact, many members were worried for him and wondering how he was going to be able to pay for his living expenses. They should not have worried at all… As the COC report, CAD investigations and the trial proceedings have exposed a web of practices that Pastor Kong Hee engaged into that more than compensated for his “loss” of a fixed salary and shed a very different light on what may have been his true motivations for going off the church payroll.  While Pastor Kong Hee was not anymore drawing a salary from the church, he was in total control both spiritual and managerial of the church he had founded. He was to use this situation to his advantage and with a little bit of creativity, vast amount of money was soon going to start to flow to him from multiple directions. Let me just describe some of the schemes that have been exposed during by the COC reports and  during the trial proceedings:

1 – You need to sell more books, CDs, DVDs?

First get your church to buy your books, CDs, DVDs and so on to distribute them as teaching materials for your members and to bless other churches. Second, strongly encourage your  church members to buy your books, CDs, DVDs and so on for their own edification. Make sure you get hefty royalties above market rate through the use of controlled distribution channels such as the Church affiliated bookstore (Example: Pastors Kong Hee and Tan Ye Peng Literature at Attributes & then Ink Room)

2 – You need money for your living expenses?

Encourage and collect “Love gifts” from some of your faithful members who would feel honored to support the honorary pastor or any other pastors in the church. Focus on the richest and most loyal members. (example: the MPA account)

3 – You have a personal self-serving dream?

Package your personal self-centered dream as a people focused evangelisation project and get the financial support from your own church and from other friendly churches from around the world  (example: The Crossover project). Make sure you share some of the benefits with your supporters, so that you can ensure their long-term loyalty. Also help your partners’ churches too with your church’s money for their own projects as reciprocity is key to long-term success.

4- You want more money for whatever reasons such as buying luxury condos?

Develop trusted relationships with other mega churches leaders and arrange reciprocal invitations that involve highly compensated (Love gifts again) speaking and preaching gigs (example: some of Kong Hee’s and other top church Leaders’ speaking and preaching engagements around the world)

5 – You want to be a guaranteed successful Entrepreneur?

Start a a private commercial company in an area of interest for your church. You can try many different activities: start a book store, a coffee place, a production company, a design company, a catering company, a cleaning company, an event management company, an investment company, an accounting company and so on so that you can multiply to potential sources of income. You do not need to worry about any competition as you will become a privileged service provider for your growing and very rich church despite charging sometimes higher than market fees. Then make sure you give some of these companies  to your supporters so that you can ensure their long-term loyalty (example: Attributes, Advante, AMAC and so on).

6- You want to save cost in your private business?

When you start your private commercial company or business, give it a Christian Twist so that you make into a church ministry work and minimise your running cost by using church staff and church members volunteers at minimal or even no cost to operate your own private business (for example Pastor Kong Hee’s speaking gigs around Asia, Attributes, Xtron and Skin Couture shops and so on).

The above list shows that the problematic practices in CHC go way beyond isolated incidents and are in fact part of an institutionalised system to turn CHC into a cash distributor for the private benefit of the few parties who controlled the system. To conclude, through this series on the CHC case, I have highlighted first in my post “City Harvest Case Part 2 – If there is a Fraud what would be the Motives?” the personal factors, that could have “motivated” the prosecuted leaders to engage into committing the unethical or even fraudulent acts they are accused of. Then in my post  “City Harvest Case Part 3 – The Opportunity Makes The Thief“, the spotlight was put on how through carefully oriented teaching, one-way communication, selective information disclosure, strong peer pressures and church leaders’ close supervision of church cell groups, Pastor Kong Hee and other CHC leaders worked hard and effectively to create a culture of OBEDIENCE and CONFORMITY in City Harvest church. This coupled with intently weakly designed corporate governance rules and a poor oversight control structure, led CHC to become an environment very VULNERABLE and in fact FAVOURABLE for possible unethical or even fraudulent activities by providing multiple OPPORTUNITIES to “break the rules” and the ability to CONCEAL their activities. In this post, we have demonstrated that the prosecuted CHC leaders have taken advantage of the opportunities created by the CHC system for their own self-interested benefits.

In my Last post “City Harvest Case part 7: The Fruits of the Crossover Tree“, I will conclude the series by examining the impact of the Crossover project on the Church, its members, the Christian community and the wider public to find out whether the Crossover project yielded positive results that might have made it worth it in the end. And we will critically analyse whether “the end justify the means” or not. So keep on the look out for my final post on the CHC case.

Source: Marc Ronez, City Harvest Case part 6: The Smog of the Crossover Financing, The Risk Management Paradox, , 25/08/2014. (Accessed 28/08/2014.)

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Court grills Lam

09 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by Nailed Truth in C3 & Pringles Associations

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c3 church, CHC, chc scandal, John Lam, Kong Hee, Lam, Phil Pringle, xtron

Channel News Asia reports,

Unsold CDs does not mean poor album sales: City Harvest Church member

SINGAPORE: Just because City Harvest Church spent some half a million dollars to buy Sun Ho’s unsold CDs in 2004, that did not mean her album sales were not doing well, said former church board member John Lam in court on Friday (Aug 8).

He was defending his claim that Ms Ho’s success was a reason why he supported the church’s investment into bonds issued by Xtron – her artiste management company. Lam is one of six church leaders accused of using church dollars to buy shams bonds to fund Ms Ho’s secular pop music career.

On Monday, the prosecution pointed out that Lam should have known that far from having a track record of successful albums with high sales, Ms Sun’s albums were losing money, and the church was having to spend large sums of money to buy up the unsold CDs.

He told the court that unsold CDs simply meant there was inventory left behind. After all, Lam said church founder Kong Hee had told the church board that sales of Ms Ho’s album were good. In 2002, Kong also told the church that an earlier album of hers had sold some 150,000 copies, hitting double platinum sales.

Lam said the church board approved the purchase of the unsold CDs in 2004 with the intention of giving them to its overseas ministries and visitors. Lam added that this was a way to grow awareness of the success of the church’s Crossover Project. The project – fronted by Ms Ho – is the church’s way of evangelising through secular pop music.

Earlier in the day, he had also denied being a “rubber stamp” as a director of Xtron. The prosecution has argued that Xtron was not an independent, commercial entity operating at arm’s length from the church. Lam insisted that as an Xtron director then, he would not have signed or approved anything that he did not believe in, even if it was asked of him by the church or Kong.

He explained that he had agreed to a stamp of his signature being made – to be used on Xtron invoices – only because he expected the staff to have verified that these were valid invoices. With Lam’s evidence wrapped up, Kong is expected to take the stand when the trial resumes on Monday.

Source: By Kimberly Spykerman, Unsold CDs does not mean poor album sales: City Harvest Church member, Channel News Asia, http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/unsold-cds-does-not-mean/1304350.html, 08 Aug 2014 23:10. (Accessed 09/08/2014.)

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The leaky ship reveals leaky trip

08 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by Nailed Truth in C3 & Pringles Associations

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accused, c3 church, chc scandal, Chew Eng Han, Christian City Church, City Harvest Church, courts, John Lam, Kong Hee, Phil Pringle, Pringle, scandal, Serina Wee

Knowing that Phil Pringle reads our site, you have got to wonder how Phil Pringle is personal receiving this information on CHC.

Channel News Asia reports,

Five City Harvest Church leaders on trial met to discuss their defence

SINGAPORE: Five of the six City Harvest Church leaders had met at least once in 2013 to discuss their defence, according to an email chain highlighted by the prosecution in court on Thursday (Aug 7). The court heard that church founder Kong Hee was not present at the meeting. The leaders are accused of using monies from the church’s building fund to buy sham bonds in Xtron and Firna to fund the secular music career of Sun Ho – the wife of church founder Kong Hee.

In an email, the church’s former investment manager and co-accused Chew Eng Han says he is “convinced” that they are not on the same page regarding the substance of their defence and some of them had shifted their position on what the bonds were actually for.

He adds that he is “disturbed” by this, and that these differences should be discussed when they next meet. Chew was also the one who brought the email chain to the court’s attention. It was admitted after a closed-door hearing on Tuesday.

Another email also revealed that his co-accused – John Lam, Serina Wee, and Sharon Tan had also raised concerns about whether they were all on the same page about the round-tripping charges.

In an email to Chew dated Feb 3, 2013, John Lam wrote: “The 2 girls have a concern. If on the bond issue there seem to be a “different page”, how about the round trip? Are we having the different view as well. Obviously we rather not.” He then suggests a meet-up to discuss this. When initially questioned by the prosecution, he had denied talking to the other accused persons about what should be said at trial.

The prosecution then questioned Lam about why – if he was truly honest – would he be worried about his co-accused taking a different view of the charges.

Lead Prosecutor Mavis Chionh asked: “Do you agree that if you are an honest accused person who is going to go to court and tell the truth… you would not be trying to meet up with your co-accused persons and worrying about their taking a different view from yours on the charges?”

In wrapping up her cross-examination on Lam, Ms Chionh also said that Lam had placed the interests of the Crossover Project over and above his duty as a church board member to ensure proper stewardship of the church’s Building Fund. She also pointed out that Lam knew using the Building Fund monies to finance Ms Ho’s career was an unauthorised use of the funds, and that his keen awareness of this was why he had desperately tried to claim ignorance during the trial.

“It is also because of this guilty knowledge that you are now trying to disassociate yourself from the transactions and instead to push the blame to some of your co-accused, from blaming Sharon Tan, for example, for wrongly recording minutes, to blaming Chew Eng Han, whom you say was responsible for feeding you information,” she said.

Ms Chionh also gave a scathing assessment of Lam’s defence saying that it has essentially been one of “I don’t know, nobody told me, and if they did tell me, they didn’t ask me for advice”. She said given his status within the church, financial expertise, and documentary evidence, his defence is not only “untenable” but “deeply cynical”.

Source: By Kimberly Spykerman, Five City Harvest Church leaders on trial met to discuss their defence, Channel News Asia, http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/five-city-harvest-church/1302222.html?cid=FBSG, Published 07/08/2014 22:25.  Updated: 07/08/2014 22:26. (Accessed 08/08/2014.)

(EDIT – 16/08/2014 – Insert of CityNews article.)

CityNews reports,

CHC Trial: Defense Objects To “Unfounded” Insinuation Of Fresh Exhibit

DPP Mavis Chionh throws curveball suggestions at defendant late into the day based on new evidence submitted by church’s former fund manager Chew Eng Han, prompting rigorous objections from the defense team.

Late this afternoon in court, senior counsel N Sreenivasan for Tan Ye Peng objected strongly when deputy public prosecutor Mavis Chionh made an attempt to “inject unknown suppositions” in her questioning of John Lam.

In a new email exhibit submitted by accused party Chew Eng Han, the court saw that a discussion had allegedly taken place among the defendants in Feb 2013, over half a year after criminal charges had been pressed against the six.

The email showed Lam informing Chew that co-defendants Sharon Tan and Serina Wee wanted to meet up to talk about the round-tripping charges, and that it was preferable for them not to have differing views from one another.

Wouldn’t an accused person who is honest just go to court and tell the truth instead of trying to meet up with his co-accused persons, worrying about their taking a different view from him on the charges? asked Chionh.

At that, Sreenivasan stood up and objected to Chionh’s question because it suggested that consulting one’s co-accused was a dishonest act. “Even an honest person in a joint trial will be concerned about all the evidence, including the evidence of the co-accused,” he reminded the court.

“I’m objecting to the fact that the entry of this document is being used to make insinuations that are unfounded,” he said.

The judge allowed the question, however, leading Lam to testify that he disagreed with the DPP’s suggestion.

In the last piece of evidence in the prosecution’s cross-examination, Chionh presented to the court a spreadsheet sent to Chew by Lam, which contained information about external loans that had been taken in order to provide funds to Xtron to fulfil its liability to City Harvest Church.

When asked why Wahju Hanafi was listed in the list of creditors who had extended the external loans, when he was the guarantor of the Crossover Project, Lam replied that he did not know.

Earlier, Chionh also sought to establish the depth of Lam’s involvement in the restructuring and redemption of the Xtron and Firna bonds, and questioned his lack of objection when a particular proposal, which seemed not protective of CHC’s interest, was made by Chew.

Lam explained that he could not see how the proposal could work, but did not offer his view because at that stage, plans and scenarios were at an exploratory stage.

Chionh labelled his explanations “absurd” and “unreasonable.” She asked Lam, hypothetically, if somebody had proposed to him a plan to steal his company’s money, would he also have kept silent? Lam replied that it was not the same—one was simply a plan he felt was unworkable, while the other was an outright crime.

In winding up the prosecution’s cross-examination today, Chionh put forward her case against Lam as follows.

“You knew that the Building Fund could not be used to fund the Crossover directly, and that was why this use of the Building Fund had to be disguised as a legitimate investment.

“You were a board member at the time, Mr Lam, is it not the case that you placed the interests of the Crossover over and above your duty as a CHC board member to ensure proper stewardship of the Building Fund?

“You may have had your own motives for why you chose to misuse the church funds in this way, but the bottom line, I’m putting to you, is that you were aware that using the Building Fund to finance Sun Ho’s music career in the Crossover was an unauthorised use of the Building Fund.”

Lam disagreed with all her points. His lawyer, Kenneth Tan, will be conducting re-examination tomorrow.

Court resumes at 10am tomorrow.

Source: The City News Team, CHC Trial: Defense Objects To “Unfounded” Insinuation Of Fresh Exhibit, CityNews, http://www.citynews.sg/2014/08/chc-trial-defense-objects-to-unfounded-insinuation-of-fresh-exhibit/,  Updated 11:36 pm 07/08/2014. (Accessed 15/08/2014.)

Related articles:

Kong in court: The Lord is my rancher?

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The lyin’ and the Lam

21 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by Nailed Truth in C3 & Pringles Associations

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CHC, Chew Eng Han, CityNews, court, dishonest, John Lam, Kong Hee, Lam, Phil Pringle, propaganda

Read our article here how the secular news reported the recent CHC case:

Chew Eng Han on Lam’s “Stew”……

Look how CHC’s propaganda agency reports the case. Do you notice what’s missing?

John Lam: Crossover Was CHC’s Call To Fulfill The Great Commission.

‎Former City Harvest Church board member John Lam took the stand this morning as the CHC trial resumed. Explaining how the Crossover Project was part of the church’s purpose to fulfill the Great Commission, Lam told the court that in 1995, CHC launched a movement called Church Without Walls, which sent members outside the four walls of the church to reach non-believers. Church Without Walls led to the start of City Harvest Community Services Association, the church’s non-religious social arm that helps the underprivileged and meets community needs.

Church Without Walls is based on the Great Commission, which is, as stated in Matthew 28:18-20 of the Bible, to “go therefore and make disciples of all the nation’s, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.”

Lam explained that in the early 2000s, CHC’s senior pastor, Kong Hee, also caught a vision to reach youth in Asia with the Gospel, particularly in cities like Taiwan and Hong Kong, where youth and young adults found pop culture and entertainment more relevant than the church.

The condition set in the Great Commission is to go preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth, but Lam pointed out, these young people had not heard the Good News. In order to reach these youth, the church had to be relevant; hence the birth of Crossover Project. Sun Ho was sent out to become a commercial success in the entertainment industry, ‎and in the process, influence the young and fulfill the Great Commission.

Lam took the court through the different bodies that managed Ho, beginning with City Harvest Pte Ltd, which was set up to keep the Crossover Project separate from the church. The name “City Harvest” became an issue and so management came under Attributes Pte Ltd, and after that, Xtron.

Lam explained why Xtron was not mentioned in the Jun 30, 2003 board meeting minutes as Ho’s new artiste management. Lam told the court this took place just after the “Roland Poon incident” and that he, among others in the board and the church, had been “traumatized” by it. In January 2003, CHC church member Roland Poon went to the press to accuse the church of financially supporting Ho’s music career. Lam told the court it had never occurred to him that the public and other Christians would object to such a project to reach the secular world through pop music.

The City Harvest Church trial resumed this morning with Senior Counsel Kenneth Tan presenting key points of his argument to support his client Lam’s case.

Lam is a chartered financial analyst and also a fellow certified public accountant. He was the treasurer in the CHC board and was involved in the financial and audit committee—all positions he held were as volunteer. He is a pioneer member of the church and is also a cell group leader.

Court resumed at 2.15pm.

Source: The CityNews Team, John Lam: Crossover Was CHC’s Call To Fulfill The Great Commission., CityNews, http://www.citynews.sg/2014/07/john-lam-crossover-was-chcs-call-to-fulfill-the-great-commission/, Updated on July 14, 2014 at 3:07 pm. (Accessed 17/07/2014.)

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Chew Eng Han on Lam’s “Stew”……

17 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by Nailed Truth in C3 & Pringles Associations

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Chew Eng Han, John Lam, Kong Hee, Lam

Singapore Law Watch have published an article on the recent developments in the CHC Case:

Ex-board member: I gave inaccurate evidence – City Harvest trial

SINGAPORE] In what was perhaps one of the more highly anticipated moments of this long-running trial, former City Harvest Church (CHC) member Chew Eng Han – representing himself for the first time since the resumption of the hearing – grilled his former fellow church-goer and board member John Lam, who was on the stand.

Among other things, Chew – who has no legal training – had Lam admit that he had given inaccurate evidence at an earlier stage of the trial.

The pair are among the six accused of having “dishonestly misappropriated” some $24 million of CHC’s Building Fund to finance Sun Ho’s music career and then “round-tripping” another $26.6 million to cover the alleged misappropriation. The others on trial are Ms Ho’s husband, senior pastor and co-founder Kong Hee, deputy senior pastor Tan Ye Peng, finance manager Sharon Tan and former finance manager and board member Serina Wee.

Chew, in a clear break from the others, quit the church in June last year; he also discharged his lawyer, Senior Counsel Michael Khoo, and is now defending himself.

When his turn came to cross-examine Lam, he challenged the latter’s assertion that it was Chew who came to Lam with the idea of setting up Xtron Productions to manage CHC’s evangelical effort, the Crossover Project. Through his line of questioning, Chew accused Lam of submitting false evidence:

“Mr Lam, I’m putting it to you right now: I didn’t approach you, I didn’t have this grand vision of a media events company. I had a full-time job – State Street Bank at the time. I was not into entertainment, nor into concerts; I wouldn’t even have had the time to think about it.

“So I put it to you that the evidence you have given to the court – that it was my idea – is false.”

Lam maintained that he had testified that Chew was the originator of the idea because it was Chew who approached him in May 2003 about having Xtron act as the artiste manager for Ms Ho. Chew argued that, since this hearing began, Lam has had sight of e-mails that showed that Chew was not the originator of the idea; the correspondence showed that others – included Kong and Tan Ye Peng – were discussing the idea before Chew came into the picture.

Chew said to Lam: “These two e-mails (exhibits), E-653, E-281, weren’t they already in your hands since the trial started? So, you would have read them before you gave your statement.”

Lam replied: “My statement was that, at the time, in May 2003, I had no knowledge that someone else was asking (Chew) Eng Han to tell me to set up Xtron . . . because it was Eng Han who approached me about being a director in Xtron.”

To which, Chew said: “Mr Lam, I’m not asking for your recollection of May 2003. I’m asking for your recollection since the trial started – you would have access to these two e-mails, and you would have gone through them. And (I’m) asking – (having) read through those e-mails, how could you come up with the statement that it was Chew Eng Han who started Xtron?”

At which point, Chief District Judge See Kee Oon stepped in: “Mr Chew, you are basically saying that Mr Lam has given evidence which is at least inaccurate. So, do you agree with this, Mr Lam?”

At this point, Lam conceded, replying: “Your Honour, yes, I agree.”

Senior Counsel N Sreenivasan, who is representing Sharon Tan, pointed out Chew’s lack of legal credentials, but this has been a shortfall to which Chew has not been adverse to admitting.

When he opened his cross-examination of Lam, he had quipped: “I would just like to make a bit of a request: when the counsel in front, when you hand out new exhibits, don’t forget there’s a little junior counsel here. I need some of the documents too.”

At another point, following an argument between the prosecution and defence counsel over a point of law, Chew said: “I don’t understand what all these counsel are saying.”

The Straits Times also reports,

Former friends clash in bid to discredit testimony

Chew grills Lam on claim that Chew had discretion to make investment plans

IT WAS a showdown yesterday between two men who used to be friends and comrades-in-arms on the City Harvest Church board.

Chew Eng Han, who oversaw its investments, mounted a feisty examination of former board member John Lam, who took the stand for a third day. Both men are among six accused on trial.

Chew, 54, was asking the questions himself as he had discharged his lawyer in May, citing a “deep personal conviction” of the need to defend himself.

He had also abruptly quit the church in June last year over deep-seated differences.

Yesterday, he was dogged in trying to discredit Lam’s testimony that Chew, the church’s former fund manager under Amac Capital Partners, had “complete and unfettered discretion” to make investment plans. These included the alleged sham transactions that are central to the present trial.

Lam has maintained that he only had a piecemeal idea of what was going on.

The six persons, including church founder Kong Hee, are accused of funnelling about $50 million of the church’s building fund monies into alleged bogus deals with events firm Xtron Productions and glass manufacturer Firna, to bankroll the secular pop music career of Kong’s wife Ho Yeow Sun.

In the one hour that Chew had before the hearing adjourned, he got Lam to admit he was wrong in his earlier testimony that it was Chew’s idea in 2003 to start Xtron to manage Ms Ho’s career.

Chew cited two e-mails, previously tendered in court as evidence, that showed the idea might have come instead from deputy senior pastor Tan Ye Peng. He said: “I didn’t approach you, I didn’t have this grand vision of a media events company. I had a full-time job, State Street Bank, at the time.”

He asked why Lam pointed the finger at him, despite having full access to the e-mails. Lam countered that he was citing his “state of mind at the contemporaneous time” in his previous answer, but later conceded that his evidence was inaccurate.

Chew also sought to justify the investments by arguing that the church had always had an appetite for risk since it began investing its surplus funds in 1998 or 1999. To prove that his financial acumen was sound, Chew recounted how he had at the time pumped $2.2 million of church funds into one single stock – Superbowl Holdings.

While Lam said there were “some concerns” from the board, Chew said he “wasn’t afraid” even when the stock plunged. The church eventually made $550,000 when it sold its stock years later.

Asked separately if it was a “dishonest act” to buy junk bonds or unrated bonds, Lam conceded it was not. Chew then cited a recent Reuters article reporting a “newly aggressive approach” by Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, investing in unrated Chinese bonds it would likely hold to maturity.

He said: “That’s what we intended for Xtron and Firna bonds, to hold (them) to maturity.”

Earlier, Lam stood by what he told investigators about Kong, when questioned by Kong’s lawyer Jason Chan of his opinions. He had called Kong “a person of great integrity, one who only thinks of the church and not for personal gain”.

Mr Chan later withdrew the question, after prosecutors pointed out that if evidence of Kong’s good character was taken in court, the Evidence Act allowed them to call witnesses to prove otherwise.

waltsim@sph.com.sg

Notable exchanges in court

FALSE EVIDENCE?

“I didn’t approach you, I didn’t have this grand vision of a media events company. I had a full-time job, State Street Bank, at the time. I was not into entertainment nor into concerts. I wouldn’t even have the time to think about it. So I put it to you that the evidence you have given to the court, that it was my idea, is false.”

– Chew Eng Han to John Lam, who had earlier testified that it was the former who came up with the idea to set up Xtron Productions to manage the secular pop music career of church founder Kong Hee’s wife Ho Yeow Sun as part of the Crossover Project

NOVICE COUNSEL

“To (counsel) in front, when you hand out new exhibits, don’t forget there’s a little junior counsel here.”

– Chew appealing to other defence lawyers, in a light-hearted moment yesterday, to remember that he was representing himself

IN SERVICE OF CHURCH

“Since 1987, all the demands of my life have been placed on three things: my family, my job and the church. Since I joined City Harvest, I’ve nothing but served, given my time, my demands, sometimes to the detriment of my career and my family. I’ve given my money, I’ve not taken any money from the church. If there’s any gain, I would say those are spiritual gains, they were gains of friendship. My core beliefs have always been to serve.”

– Lam’s passionate reply when asked if he would do anything intentionally that harms the church. Lam met Kong Hee, who was his cell group leader then, in 1987. Lam was a founding member when Kong founded City Harvest two years later

Source: Walter Sim, Former friends clash in bid to discredit testimony, Straits Times, http://www.straitstimes.com/premium/singapore/story/former-friends-clash-bid-discredit-testimony-20140717, Updated 17/07/2014. (Accessed 17/07/2014.)

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Judge not lest Hee be judged…

08 Thursday May 2014

Posted by Nailed Truth in C3 & Pringles Associations

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

CHC, chc church, chc scandal, Chew Eng Han, City Harvest Church, John Lam, Judge See, Kong Hee, Pastor Tan Ye Peng, Phil Pringle, round-tripped, scandal, See, six accused

It’s ironic that CHC will not see what Judge See saw in his assessment of the case.

City Harvest leaders have a case to answer: judge

The six accused persons in the City Harvest funds misappropriation trial are willing to take the stand to testify in their defence when it resumes in July after the judge ruled there was a case they needed to respond to.

In his decision, Judicial Commissioner See Kee Oon, who is presiding over the case, said on Monday that the prosecution has provided sufficient evidence for the charges faced by founder Kong Hee, pastor Tan Ye Peng, John Lam, accountants Serina Wee and Sharon Tan, as well as former church leader Chew Eng Han.

The charges include criminal breach of trust and falsification of accounts, among others centering around the alleged misuse of some $24 million of City Harvest Church (CHC) building funds to further Kong’s wife Ho Yeow Sun’s singing career, as well as the alleged use of $26.6 million to conceal the first amount.

Noting that the evidence presented is more documentary than it is oral — in the form of numerous emails — Judicial Commissioner See said it was sufficient, in his assessment, to support the contention that CHC’s money was misappropriated.

“There is evidence that the relevant accused persons all intended that loss should be caused to CHC,” he said, referring to the removal of money from the church’s building fund and transferring it to Xtron Productions, the entertainment firm backing Ho’s career. “Moreover, from the evidence, it would appear that the accused persons knew that they were not legally entitled to do so.”

The judge also said that the evidence produced in court thus far “demonstrates that the accused persons withheld some important information from the auditors”, as well as from executive members of CHC.

Also, because there is evidence that the accused knew that the building fund could be used for specific purposes only, Judicial Commissioner See said it can reasonably be inferred that they were dishonest, because they knew they were not legally allowed to use the money the way the did.

He also said that in his view, evidence has been produced to show that the accounts relating to the monies in question were falsely declared. Further, he said the evidence shows that they “had intended all along that money would be ’round-tripped’ from and back to CHC, but nonetheless kept the true nature of these transactions from the auditors and CHC’s executive members”.

Lawyers for all six on Monday expressed their clients’ willingness to take the stand to give evidence when the trial starts again on 14 July. They declined further comment when approached by reporters outside court.

Source: By Jeanette Tan, City Harvest leaders have a case to answer: judge, Yahoo Newsroom, https://sg.news.yahoo.com/city-harvest-leaders-have-a-case-to-answer–judge-090820373.html, 05/05/2014. (Accessed 09/05/2014.)

Related articles –

Judge: “there is evidence to show that sham, or false, investments took place.”

Quick Pringle! Attack the “haters” before the truth gets out!

News that Pringle will NOT want you to hear: CHC “leaders have case to answer, says judge”

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News On Kong Hee’s Court Case

15 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by Nailed Truth in C3 & Pringles Associations

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

CHC, chc church, CHC cult, Chew Eng Han, City Harvest Church, cult, false, false teacher, false teachers, John Lam, kong, Kong Hee, money, ps kong hee, scam, scheme, schemed, Serina Wee, Sharon Tan, Tan Ye Peng, The Straits Times, Today Online, word of faith cult

A CALL TO PRAYER & ACTION 

We wish to urge our readers to please pray for members of City Harvest Church. Our heart does go out to the people who are heavily involved in CHC.

Below the youtube video was the following,

“About 50 staff and members of City Harvest Church have started lining up outside the Subordinate Courts before the crack of dawn on Wednesday for the first day of a highly anticipated trial against six leaders of the church charged with fraud.

Some arrived as early as 11pm on Tuesday night in the hopes of getting a seat in what is expected to be a packed courtroom.” – SPHRazorTV, Large crowds gather outside Subordinate Courts at 6.45am for CHC trial, Published on May 14, 2013. (Accessed 15/05/2013.)

There is no doubt that City Harvest Church is a Word of Faith cult. Not to mention it has been publicly condemned as a movement that is not Christian and labeled a scam.

Dr Paul Choo Warns People Against Kong Hee’s Ministry: “This is NOT Christianity. This is NOT the gospel. This is a SCAM.”

Because the world can see it and not the followers, heartless comments have been thrown against CHC members. While CHC members do need to be educated that they are involved in a Word of Faith cult, they do not need to belittled like this:

“As these group of dumb ass supporters of this evil church’s collaborators are just like Hitler’s children who were so willing to die with them after so many years of propaganda . The only difference between Hitler and Kong and Co is that one fought for war while the other schemed for money!” – lance lau, http://www.youtube.com/comment?lc=rK-FZ6XczVnqqxaJiTQFt36EwulRyejuz4iy4FzuzfM, 15/05/2013.

“Satan followers.

How dumb can human being get?” – pokemonyu, http://www.youtube.com/comment?lc=rK-FZ6XczVl2f1IqddImj3eDKQ-SGomARqC6D4ArJzY, 15/05/2013.

“yea queuing for satan” – nickachiu, http://www.youtube.com/comment?lc=rK-FZ6XczVkkMqKEh5cW_jAIgZbzE_VrgWf0WOZX1DI, 15/05/2013.

We are aware that we get over 500 hits a day from our Singaporean readers. If you are involved with a more reformed or conservative bible-believing church, can we encourage you to be involved in CHC members lives and lead them out of the CHC cult? Have a meal or bible study with them and lead them into the truth through humility and prayer. May these videos on Kong Hee make your task easier. They can easily be refuted using ther scripture:

Kong Hee: A Word Of Faith Heretic (Part 1)

To Christians everywhere. Please pray for the churches in Singapore to be effective in ministering to CHC members in this time. CHC memebrs are vulnerable and exposed to unfair attack in these times. They are not the enemy. False teachers like Phil Pringle and Kong Hee are. The world now have an excuse to hate Christianity because of these false teachers. Pray for God’s sheep.

THE NEWS

The Straits Times reports,

“Prosecutors for the City Harvest trial said they had evidence of a “deliberately planned” scheme by church leaders aimed at moving millions of dollars.

In their opening statement, prosecutors said that the offences committed by church pastor Kong Hee and five other church staff were not “isolated technical breaches or inadvertent occasional missteps”.

Rather, they were part of a “deliberately planned, meticulously coordinated, and carefully executed scheme which stretched over a prolonged period of time and involved the movement of millions of dollars”.

The prosecution said they would prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused are guilty of all charges. Kong Hee, and five senior members – Tan Ye Peng, Sharon Tan, Chew Eng Han, Serina Wee and John Lam Leng Hung – were arrested and charged last year for allegedly funnelling $24 million into sham bond investments to further the career of Kong’s wife, pop-singer Ho Yeow Sun between 2007 and 2008.

The money used was from the church’s Building Fund which was earmarked to build a new church.

Another $26.6 million is said to have been misappropriated to cover up the sham investments in a procedure known as “round-tripping”. This was supposedly done to throw the church’s auditors’ off “the scent of the bogus bonds”, said the prosecution.

These were not the genuine commercial transactions the accused persons made them out to be.

It is immaterial whether the accused thought the promotion of Ms Ho’s music career would further the broader objectives of the church. Rather, the question is whether diverting money from the Building Fund under the guise of purported bond investments to fund her career was an authorised use of the money, said the prosecution.

The six face varying counts of criminal breach of trust and falsifying accounts. The first offence is punishable with a life sentence, or up to 20 years in prison and a fine. The second carries a maximum of 10 years in jail, a fine or both.

The six accused have agreed to be jointly tried on all the charges against them.”

Source: Strait Times, Prosecution-City-Harvest-Church-Leaders-Had-Deliberately-Planned. (Credit to groupsects.wordpress.com for obtaining the article first.)

City New also reported the case,

Two Sides Of The Story

Posted on 15 May 2013
By The City News Team

Three years after investigations started, trial commences for six affected CHC leaders, with key differences in how the prosecution and defense wish to take the case forward

CN PHOTOS: Daniel Poh & Michael Chan.

RIGHT from first day of the trial for the six affected leaders of City Harvest Church, the prosecution and defense show major differences in how they view the case and seek to proceed.

The prosecution alleges that CHC’s senior pastor Kong Hee, pastor Tan Ye Peng, Serina Wee, Sharon Tan, John Lam and Chew Eng Han have misappropriated more than S$50 million of church funds and have committed criminal breach of trust. The accused have agreed to be jointly tried for all the charges brought against them.

The prosecution also said that the building fund of the church was inappropriately used for alleged “sham” investments in two companies Xtron and Firna to further the music career of Kong’s wife Sun Ho. In addition, the prosecution stated their defined parameters of the trial.

Before a gallery filled with more than 50 members of the public, mostly CHC members, the prosecution said it is immaterial whether the accused thought Ho’s music career would further the broader objectives of the church. Rather, deputy public prosecutor Mavis Chionh said, the issue lies with whether the building fund was used in an “authorized” manner or not. The prosecution also said it was inconsequential to the case whether Sun’s crossing over into the entertainment circle is “theologically legitimate” or not.

But the defense disagreed. The lawyers sought clarification from the prosecution on whether they equate the Crossover Project with Sun’s music career, and the defense also emphasized that since the case involves a church, theological legitimacy has to be considered, adding “as a matter of fact, there was no unlawful loss of monies by the church.”

The first prosecution witness to take the stand is Lai Baoting, a former accounting staff of CHC. She took the stand to answer questions about emails that were sent from her using an Xtron email account, before the court session broke for lunch.

The trial, which started this morning at nearly 10am, signifies a key development in a long-drawn case about the finances of CHC, which first unfolded when the Commissioner of Charities and Commercial Affairs Department launched investigations into its accounts in May 2010.

Senior Counsel N. Sreenivasan toldCity News that there are two key things to note: one, that the prosecution wants to maintain that the use of the building fund for the Crossover Project was unauthorized, but “as my learned friend Edwin Tong said in open court, the use was not unauthorized. But I won’t comment as it’s an issue before the court.”

The second key thing to bear in mind is fourfold: “The accused had no wrongful gain; there was no unlawful loss; the Church made good and there has been no dishonesty.”

Senior District Judge See Kee Oon hears the case. The trial continues this afternoon.

Source: The City News Team, City News, Two Sides Of The Story, 15/05/2013. (Accessed 15/05/2013.)

Today Online also published their article on the case here:

http://www.todayonline.com/city-harvest-execs-schemed-move-money-prosecution

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