City Harvest church leader John Lam in spotlight for S$1.2 million ‘error’

By Nurul Azliah Aripin | Yahoo Newsroom – 

Former City Harvest treasurer and board member, John Lam Leng Hung on Monday, battled prosecution claims that he had "mistakenly" pumped S$1.2 million into a church-building fund, which was was later withdrawn and channeled into funds to develop the musical career of co-founder Pastor Kong Hee's wife, Sun Ho.
 
Clad in shirt and blazer, Lam, 46, was the first of six leaders to take the stand in the fifth tranche of the mega church's trial, which started on Monday. The leaders, including church founder Kong Hee and former finance manager Serina Wee, are accused of misappropriating more than $50 million worth of church funds to finance Sun Ho's career as part of a "Crossover Project" to evangelise youths.
 
During court proceedings, prosecutor Mavis Chionh produced a 2002 email suggesting that Lam's "error" was part of a deliberate plan to muddy the paperwork trail before the eventual channeling of funds into the Crossover Project.
 
In the email between Lam and another accused church leader, Chew said, "We will need to do more withdrawals of BF [building fund] (this time, probably Wahju and myself), and put into Xtron, and Pst Kong will put in some personal cash also..."
 
This "merry go round" funds as claimed by Lam in another email was initially excluded in meeting minutes submitted to auditors because he was "scared" that the public would "object" the withdrawing from the building fund. It was later added into the minutes signed by Lam. In response to this, prosecutors suggested that Lam had "falsified" the document.

The $1.2 million was donated by church member, Wahju Hanafi, the owner of company Attributes Pte Ltd, who is accused of helping the leaders in the misappropriation of funds.
 
Lam had initially explained that he had made an "error" when depositing $1.2 million worth of donations, which was originally intended for Sun Ho's career from the start.

Lam allowed rubber stamping of his signatures
 
Lam also admitted to allowing stamps to be made of his signature for invoices under Xtron as he would not be "the best person" to verify some of them.
 
He admitted to this after prosecutor Chionh showed an email from the church's human resource and administration manager Wong Foong Ming requesting to make signature stamps.
 
Lam added that Wee was in charge of processing those invoices and had trusted her verification.
 
The trial continues on Tuesday.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/city-harvest-church-leader-john-lam-in-spotlight-for-s-1-2-million--error--100459301.html