FORMER managing partner of JLC Advisors Jeffrey Ong Su Aun was on Monday (Jul 17) sentenced to 19 years’ imprisonment, after the disbarred lawyer pleaded guilty to 10 charges, including offences of cheating and criminal breach of trust as an attorney.

His offences involved nearly S$76 million of clients’ money and the prosecutor described it as “the largest amount of money ever misappropriated by a lawyer in Singapore”. Of this, the victims faced monetary losses amounting to about S$64.1 million, while Ong gained S$7.2 million.

Ong had used the money to pay himself, repay his outstanding loans, and issue loans to other individuals without the clients’ consent.

His sentence is the longest jail term ever meted out to a lawyer in Singapore.

Besides the 10 charges, Ong faced 66 other charges that were taken into consideration for sentencing.

The 10 charges the 45-year-old was convicted of involved cheating and dishonesty over the disbursement of a sum amounting to S$6 million; criminal breach of trust in respect of S$33 million that had been entrusted to him; and conspiring to commit criminal breach of trust in respect of S$14 million.

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The S$33 million was entrusted by now-delisted company Allied Technologies, which had entered into an escrow agreement with JLC in 2017.

Ong became a partner of JLC in April 2011, and took over the role of managing partner at the now-defunct boutique law firm in August 2018. Around this time, he withdrew all the funds from Allied Tech’s escrow account. He misappropriated S$6.3 million of the funds to make partial repayment of a US$13 million loan given by one Lin Tah Hwa to his friend Kenneth Low Si Ren.

Low is named as a co-accused in some of Ong’s charges, but neither he nor anyone else has been charged.

Ong misappropriated another S$8 million from Allied Tech’s escrow funds to provide a loan to one of his friends, Wong Koon Lup, the former chief executive officer of previously Hong Kong-listed machine-tool manufacturer CW Group (CWG).

Allied Tech raised S$16.7 million during the first tranche of share placement in 2017, and another S$16.7 million during the second tranche. Altogether, the former Catalist-listed precision engineering company was seen to have raised more than S$33 million. 

However, this appearance was false, and the proceeds raised were substantially less than the stated amount, said the prosecution in the statement of facts. Investigations revealed that the bulk of the funds raised from the first tranche – S$11.7 million – was reused to pay for the share subscriptions in the second tranche.

Ong had entered into a conspiracy with Low to commit criminal breach of trust when they siphoned off the S$11.7 million from Allied Tech in a round-tripping manner, noted the prosecution. 

The prosecution pointed out that Low, who has been the sole director of Allied Tech since November 2022, wrote to the police in June this year to state that Allied Tech was withdrawing its report against Ong and not seeking any further action against the accused.  

Ong had separately conspired with CWG’s Wong to misappropriate money belonging to the Hong Kong company, where Ong had been an independent director before he resigned while wanted by the police.

CWG’s books had over S$100 million in escrow funds, but most of the money had been used by the conspirators to pay or lend money to unrelated third parties or used to make trade receivable rollovers, without the knowledge or authorisation of CWG.  

Wong had used the funds or other sources of funds to pay down the trade receivables on CWG’s accounts, although the customers had not made payment to the Hong Kong company.

Ong has not made any restitution of the misappropriated monies.