[Updated 6 August 2014, 12:56pm: Prosecution
alleged that City Harvest church leaders tried to cover up $5 million
used to finance Sun Ho's music career]
Xtron, the music production firm which was managing Ms Ho’s career from 2003 to 2008, had taken $4.79 million from the church intended as advance rental monies for a Singapore Expo hall.
The prosecution said that in order to cover up the use of this money, church leaders planned to use Xtron’s bond proceeds to pay back the rental money. However, the proceeds could not be used in such an arrangement.
Serina Wee, the former church finance manager, suggested concealing the use of the bond money under a “traveling and salaries” section of the bond subscription agreement. The prosecution presented this scenario based on an email shown during the hearing on Tuesday, reported The New Paper.
Ms Wee is among six senior church leaders accused of misappropriating more than $50 million worth of church funds to finance Sun Ho’s secular pop music career. Sun Ho is the wife of City Harvest founder, Pastor Kong Hee.
The New Paper reported that former CHC board member John Lam said that he did not see the prosecution’s scenario as a "cover-up" but a means for Xtron to pay for Ms Ho’s album expenses first, including the costs of traveling and salaries.
The fresh details of the case follow Monday’s court session, where it was revealed City Harvest Church (CHC) had spent $500,000 to buy Sun Ho’s unsold CDs.
According to TODAY newspaper, Chionh said the financial statements of the church revealed that at least 32,000 of Ms Ho’s unsold music CDs were purchased by the church for a sum of S$500,000 to be given away to ministries and churches overseas.
Ms Ho’s "commercial success" was also cited as a reason for the church’s investment in Xtron-issued bonds.
Lam also took the stand on Monday, claiming he had “mistakenly” pumped S$1.2 million into a church-building fund, which was later withdrawn and channeled into funds to develop Ho’s career.
(BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAA.
MISTAKENLY?!?!? 1.2MILLION?!?!? OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG ARE WE FREAKING IDIOTS?!??!)
During court proceedings, Chionh produced a 2002 email suggesting that Lam’s “error” was part of a deliberate plan to muddy the paperwork trail before the eventual channeling of funds into the Crossover Project.
In the email between Lam and another accused church leader, Chew said, “We will need to do more withdrawals of BF [building fund] (this time, probably Wahju and myself), and put into Xtron, and Pst Kong will put in some personal cash also...”
This “merry go round” of funds as claimed by Lam in another email was initially excluded in meeting minutes submitted to auditors because he was “scared” that the public would “object” the withdrawing from the building fund. It was later added into the minutes signed by Lam. In response to this, prosecutors suggested that Lam had “falsified” the document.
The court also heard that the bulk of Xtron’s funds came from City Harvest church members.
For example, the $1.2 million in question was donated by church member, Wahju Hanafi, the owner of company Attributes Pte Ltd. Lam had initially explained that he had made an “error” when depositing $1.2 million worth of donations, which was originally intended for Sun Ho’s career from the start.
Lam allowed rubber stamping of his signatures
Lam also admitted to allowing stamps to be made of his signature for invoices under Xtron as he would not be “the best person” to verify some of them.
He admitted to this after prosecutor Chionh showed an email from the church’s human resource and administration manager Wong Foong Ming requesting to make signature stamps.
Lam added that Wee was in charge of processing those invoices and had trusted her verification.
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