SINGAPORE (Nov 4): The second tranche of hearings in the trial of John Soh Chee Wen and Quah Su-Ling ended with a bang last week as the court heard details of a pregnancy plot and also saw its first hostile prosecution witness.
Soh and Quah are the alleged masterminds behind the massive rise and collapse of shares in Blumont Group, LionGold Corp and Asiasons Capital (now Attilan Group), which wiped out some $8 billion in market value in 2013.
Pregnancy plot
On Oct 29, Ivy Tan Ai Bee told the court that her former employer, Adeline Cheng Jo-Ee, who was Soh’s ex-girlfriend, had sought to ride his connections to turn her small-scale asset management company, Alethia Asset Management, into an “empire” with $1 billion of assets under management.
Under cross-examination by Soh’s lawyer, senior counsel N Sreenivasan of K&L Gates Straits Law, Tan, who had worked as Cheng’s personal assistant, admitted that she was “to a certain extent more than a PA”. Sreenivasan suggested that Tan had encouraged Cheng to “get her hooks into Soh”.
Later, the defence counsel also surfaced details of an alleged plot by Cheng to get pregnant with Soh’s baby. When pressed by Sreenivasan, Tan recalled that Cheng had plans to get pregnant.
When state prosecutors raised objections to the defence counsel’s line of questioning, Sreenivasan said he would reserve these questions for Cheng. The prosecution had mentioned that Cheng would be appearing in the third tranche of the trial next year.
Quah’s counsel, Philip Fong, managing director of Eversheds Harry Elias, also suggested that Cheng had planned to get pregnant with Soh’s baby. Referencing messages between Tan and Cheng, he noted that Tan had told Cheng not to make any big moves.
Hostile witness
Later in the week, the prosecution made applications to cross-examine former Phillip Securities remisier Joe Tiong Sing Fatt as a “hostile witness” after he proved to be uncooperative.
Taking the stand as the final prosecution witness in this second tranche of the trial, Tiong was less than forthcoming with his replies, often answering with “I can’t remember” and “I’m not sure”. Tiong was also caught out in court by the prosecution for contradicting previous statements he had made to the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD).
Justice Hoo Sheau Peng allowed the prosecution’s application. However, Hoo said she would rule only at the end of the trial whether to allow the prosecution’s other application, which was to impeach Tiong’s credibility as a witness.
Contradictory statements that Tiong made included claiming that he only recognised Soh and former broker Wong Xu Yue at a meeting at LionGold.
In his statement to CAD, Tiong had also claimed that he had met Quah only once before, at a corporate function. When questioned in court, however, he said he recognised her at the same LionGold meeting where he had met Soh and Wong for the first time, inadvertently revealing that he had met Quah more than once.
Tiong had also said he contacted Wong only sporadically. When confronted with evidence that he had called Wong over 200 times in the period between Aug 1, 2012 and Oct 30, 2013, however, Tiong claimed to have misunderstood the question. “I thought you meant ‘met up’,” he said.
Grilled by deputy public prosecutor (DPP) Nicholas Tan on the inconsistency in his statements, Tiong then attributed it to “undue stress” which “may have affected” his memory.
Of particular interest to the prosecution were two accounts under Tiong, belonging to Chong Kwan Lian and Ooi Kwee Seah, which traded heavily in the Blumont, Asiasons and LionGold counters.
DPP Tan revealed that the two accounts combined made up 90% of Tiong’s commissions. “You were basically a struggling remisier before Quah introduced these two clients to you,” he said.
Later, the prosecution also unveiled evidence of Tiong’s involvement in the market manipulation scheme. The court was shown that Tiong’s name appeared in an email from Quah as well as in a spreadsheet belonging to Goh Hin Calm.
Goh is said to be the “treasurer” of the operation, and is currently serving a three-year sentence for his role in the 2013 penny stock crash. In response to questions by the prosecution, Tiong said he had “no idea” why his name appeared in an email from Quah to Goh about contra losses.
An examination of Goh’s spreadsheet also revealed that Tiong’s name appeared in rows recording the contra losses of Lucas Low Min Liat and Keegan Gerald Kari, two other accounts under him.
However, Tiong claimed that he did not know why Low’s and Kari’s names appeared on Goh’s spreadsheet.
The comeback
Tiong claimed he was introduced to Soh when he was looking for a job after the crash in 2013. He said, since he owed Phillip Securities $360,000 due to contra losses, Soh made him a director of Dongshan Group, which was formerly known as Greatronics Group.
Before his arrest and remand, Soh was Dongshan’s acting CEO and chief operating officer. “When I joined, Dongshan was a shell with many shareholders, and looking for a new business and structure,” Tiong said.
According to DPP Tan, Dongshan was a play on words and an inside joke to Soh and his associates. He explained that Dongshan was a play on the Chinese phrase dong shan zai qi, which is a metaphor for “to make a comeback”.
“Soh was planning to use Dongshan as a means of coming back after the crash of BAL (Blumont, Asiasons, LionGold) shares,” DPP Tan said. The prosecution also revealed that Soh’s son, Soh Han Quan, was a major shareholder in Dongshan.
The trial has been adjourned until the start of the next tranche on Jan 2 next year.
