Woman allegedly acted as goddess, forced 5 ‘devotees’ to eat faeces as punishment; faces 50 charges
Ili Nadhirah Mansor/TODAY
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- Woo May Hoe, now 52, has been remanded since October 2020
- She was charged with 10 offences related to her alleged claims of being the human embodiment of an Indian goddess
- She faces an additional 40 charges, which include forcing five "devotees" to eat human faeces
- She is also accused of cheating several victims of millions of dollars
BY
LOUISA TANG
Published October 10, 2022Updated October 10, 2022
SINGAPORE — A 52-year-old woman who allegedly pretended to be the embodiment of an Indian goddess was handed a slew of additional charges last week, such as forcing her "devotees" to eat human faeces and pulling out their teeth.
Woo May Hoe now faces a total of 50 charges which include cheating, causing hurt by means of a harmful substance, and causing grievous hurt.
The Singaporean has been remanded for about two years since October 2020, when she was first hauled to court and charged with 10 offences.
Another 40 charges were then brought against her last Thursday (Oct 6). The prosecution said that all the charges have now been finalised.
With these new allegations, the number of Woo's purported victims has grown from eight to at least 14. She is accused of targeting them between 2012 and May 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Woo allegedly forced five people to swallow human faeces “as a punishment”.
Court documents also detailed several offences that Woo supposedly committed against a woman, now aged 43:
- Forced her to jump from the second floor of the Ubi Techpark building. She fractured both ankles
- Used a pair of pliers to forcibly extract the victim’s tooth
- Stabbed her forearm with a pair of scissors
- Hit her face with a bundle of canes, damaging her eye
- Hit her head and hand with a paint roller brush, fracturing her little finger
- Hit her head with an “Isagenix” bottle and twisted her ear, causing it to bleed
- Poured essential oils into an eye, causing a “corneal abrasion”
In addition to physical abuse, Woo is accused of cheating several victims of millions of dollars.
They handed over sums ranging from S$3,000 to S$100,000 for Woo to buy cows as a "form of donation" to redeem their sins, improve their medical conditions, or prevent their parents from having poor health.
In 2012, a woman gave Woo S$500,000 for this purpose.
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Between 2013 and early 2015, the same woman handed over S$2.5 million after Woo allegedly told her she needed funds to build a “Balaji” temple at Vellore Village in India.
Woo also purportedly cheated the same woman into handing over another S$3.5 million, after lying that she had to sponsor the expansion of a school built by “Amma” (which means “mother” in Tamil) at the same village.
In 2020, Woo supposedly got the victim to give her S$12,000 by saying she had borrowed money from Malaysian loan sharks to pay for a landed property along Bedok Road.
Some of Woo’s charges were of her conspiring to cheat banks into disbursing mortgage loans for various properties. The loan amounts ranged from S$185,000 to S$4.6 million.
Woo will return to court on Nov 17 for a pre-trial conference. She remains on remand and has been offered bail of S$200,000.
If convicted of causing hurt by forcing someone to swallow a harmful substance, she could be jailed up to 10 years and fined for each offence. Causing grievous hurt carries the same punishment.
Both offences also carry the possibility of caning, but women cannot be caned under the law here.
If convicted of cheating, she could similarly be jailed for up to 10 years and fined for each offence.
