A FORMER part-time polytechnic lecturer was jailed yesterday for being involved in illegal money lending.
Lee Kim Hock, 52, admitted to 10 counts of abetting others to carry out the business under various aliases between September 2009 and September last year.
He was given 39 months’ jail and a $300,000 fine. As he cannot pay the fine, he will serve another 60 weeks in jail.
Under the Moneylenders Act, he could have been fined up to $300,000 and jailed for up to four years on each charge.
Lee had been a part-time lecturer with Republic Polytechnic since 2007. He taught at the School of Sports, Health and Leisure until he was suspended in September last year, after the school was informed by the police about his brush with the law.
The polytechnic had told him that if his case was not dealt with by April 30 this year, his contract would be deemed to have expired.
A polytechnic spokesman said yesterday that while Lee was at RP, “there was no indication whatsoever that he was involved in any criminal activities”.
Lee was also an army regular for six years, holding the rank of sergeant as an Outward Bound instructor.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Ruth Wong told District Judge Low Wee Ping that not long after Lee got to know freelance salesman Ku Teck Eng in August 2009, Ku told him that he was facing financial difficulties and owed money to loan sharks.
Ku, 41, said an unlicensed moneylending business seemed profitable. He broached the subject later, and Lee agreed to start the business and to provide $20,000 as capital.
Ku was to look for debtors and he would contact Lee to issue loans. Interest of 20 per cent, repayable over six consecutive weeks, would be charged.
Ku recruited Melvin Tan Cheng Huat, 35, who was unemployed, to the business and the trio were to share the profits.
Up to December 2009, Lee maintained his own records in his laptop, but he then decided to stop doing so as he trusted Ku to keep the records.
The court heard that when Ku found out that Tan was not honest in handling the money, Tan was replaced by Garreth Ho Sheng Yu, 38, last August. Ho was also jobless.
Ku, Tan and Ho kept the debtors’ records, issued loans and collected repayments from debtors.
DPP Wong said that in total, the syndicate had 30 to 40 debtors and the loan in circulation was about $41,000.
The court was not told how the operations were uncovered.
Lee, who was arrested last September, had recouped $15,000 while Ku and Tan got about $5,000 each as their share.
Eighteen other charges were considered during Lee’s sentencing.
Earlier this year, Ku was sentenced to 45 months’ jail and a $300,000 fine. Tan, who also had a drug charge, was given six years and fined $240,000.
Ho, who had a similar conviction for abetting in moneylending, was jailed for five years, given six strokes of the cane and fined $480,000.
DPP Wong said Lee should get a similar sentence as Ku as he played a vital role in financing the business.
Pleading for leniency, Lee’s lawyer R.S. Wijaya said that after graduating from a New Zealand university in 1998, his client had set up a training company in human resource development before joining Republic Polytechnic in July 2007.
Friends have described him as generous, likeable, a dedicated employee and exemplary in their character references, said the lawyer.
Mr Wijaya said Lee neither earned a cent nor was he involved in the unlicensed moneylending operations, which were left to Ku and the others.
While Judge Low felt that Ku was the most culpable, he did not think that Lee was that much less culpable.
