City Harvest trial: Kong knew Sun Ho’s success was not real, Chew says

SINGAPORE — City Harvest Church founder Kong Hee had “shortchanged the faith of the church members” because he knew that his wife Sun Ho’s secular music success was not real, the church’s former investment manager Chew Eng Han said in court today (Aug 18).

Kong knew all the while that money was being used to boost Ms Ho’s CD sales and her position on the music charts, Chew said as he continued his cross-examination of Kong.

Chew, who is defending himself, charged that in a bid to boost sales, about S$30,000 was spent on iTunes gift cards in 2009 to purchase Ms Ho’s US single Fancy Free. Kong refuted this, saying that the money – which was less than S$30,000 – came from private donations, and was not meant to boost sales of the single.

Watch the music video of Ms Ho's single, Fancy Free:

“It was a marketing strategy to create momentum for the launch of her single,” Kong said, adding that the US Billboard Dance chart does not depend on sales.

Chew also charged that Ms Ho’s fan base was, in reality, smaller than what Kong allowed church members to believe. He said that what Kong told the church about Ms Ho singing the theme song at the 2007 Special Olympics, and how she had been given a special commemorative series of stamps by organisations in China, were all “false claims”.

Watch the video of Ms Ho singing the 2007 Special Olympics theme song:

Ms Ho’s success in Asia led him to believe returns could be generated from the US album, Chew said. “I’ll submit to you that you consciously kept all relevant information away from me so that you could continue to use me to help you do whatever was necessary to help arrange the necessary funding,” he said to Kong.

Chew and Kong are among six church leaders standing trial for allegedly misusing millions of church dollars to bankroll the secular music career of Ms Ho. CHANNEL NEWSASIA