Leaders of a Christian church in Singapore, who misused £23 million to advance the pop music career of their pastor’s wife in order to draw more congregants, have been found guilty after a two-year-long trial. The pastor in question, 47-year-old Kong Hee (and five others) reportedly spent church funds to produce ritzy music videos, featuring skimpily clad women, to promote his wife Sun Ho’s musical pursuits across Asia in their attempt to compete with the pop music market in America.
Kong and Ho had founded City Harvest Church in 1989, after which the latter went on to promote herself as ‘the singing pastor’ across Asia by releasing several singles. She also worked on an album with Haitian rapper Wyclef Jean, featuring in one of his music videos in 2007. All of this international success managed to elude her, the court heard last month. While her husband and his aides were convicted for diverting half the amount to finance the singer’s career and misappropriating the remaining half to cover their tracks, 43-year-old Ho was not even charged.
Dozens of congregants gathered in the courtroom and heard with stunned silence their pastor’s guilty verdict. Kong and another church leader were convicted for criminal breach of trust while the other four were convicted for falsifying accounts and altering counts of criminal breach of trust. Criminal breach of trust alone carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. According to the court, the six accused made use of a practice known as round-tripping to channelize church funds allotted for the construction of a building, invest in sham bonds and falsify church accounts to make it seem like the bonds had been redeemed.
“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,” said the judge, See Kee Oon.
Even though the court found no evidence of any wrongful doing by the accused, Oon stressed that this would not a problem in convicting them. All six have been released on bail until their sentencing, with Kong’s bail being set at Sg$1 million.
Reportedly, Kong and Ho spearheaded the expansion of their congregation to over 17,500 members by modeling their church on similar American churches that associate wealth with Christianity. They encouraged congregants to make large donations and organized slick services to preach prosperity gospel. While Singapore happens to be primarily Buddhist and Taoist, certain local Christian churches have managed to amass large fortunes from the city-state’s affluent population.
Photo Credits: Christian Post
