SINGAPORE, April 9 — The defence counsel for a lawyer accused of misappropriating millions of dollars from his clients has disputed arguments by prosecutors that he absconded to Malaysia before being arrested there with a stolen Malaysian passport.
Jeffrey Ong Su Aun, 43, the former managing partner of law firm JLC Advisors, appeared in a district court today for further arguments on whether he should be released on bail.
His lawyer Tan Hee Joek told the court that according to an affidavit Ong’s friend gave to the Singapore police’s Commercial Affairs Department (CAD), the friend had bought the passport on the black market in China and given it to Ong over drinks in Singapore.
The defence’s case, however, is that the friend obtained it through an employee of a spa he runs with his wife.
Ong then left the passport in a stack of documents. It was inadvertently handed to him when he asked his business associate to get him the documents while they were in Malaysia, Tan said.
He also argued that Ong had not fled Singapore, but instead went to Malaysia to settle two work projects.
After close to three hours of hearing, District Judge Terence Tay adjourned the matter to next Tuesday (April 13) for the prosecution to file another affidavit on the matter.
Ong has been in remand since June 2019 following his arrest in a Kuala Lumpur hotel. He faces 76 charges including cheating, forgery and criminal breach of trust as an attorney, in a case involving more than S$75 million.
Prosecutors said today that they believe it is “the largest amount of money ever misappropriated by a lawyer in Singapore”, and that Ong has admitted to his offences in statements given to the Singapore police.
The case was first thrust into the spotlight when his client, precision engineering firm Allied Technologies, filed a police report over S$33.4 million having gone missing from its escrow account.
An escrow account is used predominantly by solicitors here to control the flow of funds during various stages of the transaction for a project, for instance, the sale of a property.
Five of Ong’s charges were amended today to name Allied Technologies’ executive director Kenneth Low Si Ren as a co-accused.
