Kong Hee & Co On Trial
Wednesday, 15th May 2013
The six leaders of City Harvest Church (CHC), Pastor Kong Hee & five others, accused of committing criminal breach of trust are in court for trial. Five of them - Kong Hee, John Lam, Chew Eng Han, Tan Ye Peng and Serina Wee - allegedly misused church buildings funds amounting to S$24 million by channelling the money into two companies, Xtron Productions and PT the First National Glassware (Firna), as bond investments. The alleged misappropriation of money took place between January 2007 and October 2008. The funds were used to boost the music career of Kong Hee's wife, Sun Ho (aka Geisha). CHC's Pastor Hong Hee preaches the prosperity gospel and as a following of more than 30,000 worshipers. This is what the charges were.
The prosecutors have produced evidence to show that $6 million of church funds purportedly went into paying for pop singer Ho Yeow Sun’s music career. In an e-mail sent by accountant Serina Wee (one of the accused) to Indonesian businessman Wahju Hanafi that came with a timeline (from Oct 5 to 31, 2009) showing the “round-tripping”. The timeline showed how money was meant to flow from one church-linked company to another, before $6 million was eventually to be transferred to Mr Justin Herz of JH Music production house in California after Oct 31. Justin was engaged to help promote Sun Ho's career in the United States. The prosecution also produced another e-mail from another witness, Ms Angie Koh who was a former accounts assistant at the church, to Mr Wahju. In it, she had asked him to settle certain transactions so that the six million dollars would "reach Justin in two weeks".
Justin Herz is a senior executive from Warner Bros - an American producer of television and music entertainment.
JH Music is registered in 2006 but is currently an in-active business sited in Los Angeles (CA, USA) with its named officer as Ms. Renee Herz.