Man who cheated widow has jail term doubled to 18 months

SINGAPORE — A former insurance agent who was jailed for cheating his client and long-time friend, leaving the elderly widow with barely any savings to pay for her son’s school fees, has had his sentence doubled by the High Court to 18 months.

Giving the green light for the prosecution’s appeal today (Nov 27), Justice Tay Yong Kwang said he found it very hard to be sympathetic to Tan Peng Khoon, given the “totally heartless” manner that he deceived the victim.

Tan had been sentenced to nine months’ jail in February, after he was convicted of forgery and cheating an officer of insurance company AIA to take advantage of Mdm Lim Choon Hoay’s policies. The 45-year-old bankrupt had over the years borrowed S$150,000 from Mdm Lim, 61, and never repaid the sum.

On Oct 12, 2011, Tan lied to Mdm Lim, who was not fluent in English, that he was leaving AIA, and asked her to sign three English-language documents to effect a change in her insurance agent. He also got her to sign off on another document granting him access to her POSB bank account, under the ruse that he was a police informant and the informant monies would be transferred into her account to repay his debt.

Little did the woman know that she had been duped into terminating a life insurance policy for S$2,018.11 and taking out a S$6,500 loan under another life insurance policy. The signed papers also authorised Tan to receive cheques for these monies on her behalf. The next day, Tan cashed out S$6,500 from her account, and headed straight to the casino to gamble. Nineteen hours later, he withdrew another S$2,000 and continued gambling.

For four counts of forgery for the purpose of cheating and two counts of cheating and inducing the delivery of property, Tan was sentenced to three to six months’ jail for each charge. Two of the sentences were to run consecutively, putting him away for nine months.

The prosecution opposed this, arguing that District Judge Salina Ishak failed to realise the extent of the harm caused to the victim after she terminated her life insurance policy, which had a face value of S$50,000.

In their submissions, deputy public prosecutors Alan Loh and Nicholas Tan said it would be much more difficult and expensive for Mdm Lim to take up a new life insurance policy, given her current age and means, and argued the district judge failed to consider the extent of Tan’s callousness.

Tan’s lawyer Tan Gee Tuan said the accused had racked up debts from a failed business in China. Further, she said Tan had made restitution for the S$6,500 loan and interest, and the S$2,018.11 surrender proceeds in September “to save the court’s time” in hearing the appeal, and not to “obtain a favourable outcome”, as the prosecution suggested.

Delivering his judgment, Justice Tay said if Tan had been truly remorseful, restitution should have been made much earlier. Agreeing the original sentence was manifestly inadequate, he increased Tan’s sentences to between six and 12 months, with two of the sentences to run consecutively.