Ming Yi and aide guilty

Oct 8, 2009
Ming Yi and aide guilty
Monk convicted on charges related to $50,000 taken wrongfully from Ren Ci
By Carolyn Quek

Yesterday's guilty verdict brought to a close a 21-day trial and scandal that had dogged Ming Yi, 47, for nearly two years. -- ST PHOTO: WONG KWAI CHOW

CELEBRITY monk Shi Ming Yi strode into court on Wednesday for the verdict on his criminal trial with a smile that turned to a grimace of disappointment as soon as his judgment was read.

Guilty, said the judge, of all four counts relating to the $50,000 he had taken wrongfully from Ren Ci, the charity he had founded.

As murmurs ran around the packed courtroom in the highly watched case, District Judge Toh Yung Cheong also convicted his 34-year-old former aide, Raymond Yeung on two counts. The judge found that the former Ren Ci chief executive and his aide had conspired to make an unauthorised loan of $50,000 on May 17, 2004.

When the authorities started asking questions more than two years later, they cooked up a story about what the money was for.

He convicted the two men on one charge each of giving false information to the Commissioner of Charities (COC).

He also found Ming Yi guilty of two other charges of misappropriating $50,000 and lying to the COC in an oral statement.

Read the full story in Thursday's edition of The Straits Times

carolynq@sph.com.sg