The pastor and five other senior staff of the City Harvest megachurch in Singapore were today jailed for a fraud that revolved around misusing church finances to fund the music career of the pastor's wife.
Pastor Kong Hee, founder of the church, was jailed for eight years. Chew Eng Han, former fund manager, went to prison for six years. Tan Ye Peng, deputy senior pastor, was given five years and six months. Serina Wee, former finance manager, got five years. John Lam, finance committee member, got three years and Sharon Tan, former finance manager went to prison for 21 months. None of the six made any personal, wrongful gain from the fraud.
The £23 million (US$35 million) fraud was "the largest amount of charity funds ever misappropriated in Singapore's legal history," state prosecutors said.
City Harvest Church, which has about 17,500 members in Singapore and worldwide, launched the Crossover Project in 2002. This was an evangelisation project built on Sun Ho's music. Songs released included China Wine, where a rap artist, Wyclef Jean, portrayed Ho as an exotic dancer in Jamaica.
An attempt to break into the US market ended in failure and huge losses.
The convictions were for misappropriating church funds for the music project then taking more to cover tracks of the non-musical variety. Ho, who became leader of the church, was not prosecuted.
