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Sunshine Empire's appeals dismissed
Straits Times
Yasmine Yahya
HIGH Court Justice Tay Yong Kwang criticised the Sunshine Empire scam as a 'well thought-out scheme designed to defraud participants under an aura of legitimacy and respectability' in a written judgment issued yesterday.
Justice Tay made the comment in a 31-page written judgment upholding the findings, convictions and sentences handed down by District Judge Jasvender Kaur last year.
It means company founder James Phang Wah, 51, will start serving his nine-year jail term next month. He had been given a fine of $60,000 in July last year. Former director Jackie Hoo Choon Cheat, 31, was sentenced to a seven-year term.
Phang's wife, Neo Kuon Huay, 48, was fined $60,000 for falsifying payment vouchers.
Sunshine was a multi-level marketing company that sold 'lifestyle packages' promising high returns. But the returns did not come out of genuine profits but by recycling funds from new participants.
In upholding the sentences handed out to the three, Justice Tay said he agreed with Judge Kaur's finding that Sunshine 'was an unsustainable business and that Phang and Hoo were knowingly perpetrating a fraud on the participants by the operation of the Sunshine Empire scheme'.
He also agreed with her that Phang and Hoo had made unlawful payments to Neo.
Neo was paid a commission of nearly $950,000 as the firm's global sales director, although she had not been appointed to the role and was not qualified to hold it, he wrote.
Judge Kaur was also correct in finding that Phang and Neo had committed a dishonest act in falsifying six payment vouchers in order to receive commissions amounting to nearly $1 million, Justice Tay ruled.
He said in his written judgment that these sentences 'should serve as sufficient deterrence against such offences'.
The three had appealed to the High Court against their convictions. Phang and Hoo also appealed against their sentences. The prosecution, meanwhile, wanted longer prison terms for Phang and Hoo and pushed for Neo to be sentenced to six months' jail.
Yesterday, Justice Tay agreed to defer Phang and Hoo's jail sentence by three weeks to let them settle their personal and business affairs and to allow them to spend some time with their families.
The court heard yesterday that Phang's father is suffering from kidney failure and might have to undergo surgery to have both his legs amputated and there is a chance Phang will not see him anymore after he goes to jail.
It was also told that Hoo has a grandmother in Malaysia who is 94 and ailing. She will come to Singapore to see him before he starts his sentence.
Sunshine is being wound up. The Commercial Affairs Department has seized about $21 million and will establish how the funds should be disbursed to the firm's creditors.
