CNA – The owner of three business entities offering beauty services and related courses masterminded a series of scams by instigating her subordinate to defraud the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) into disbursing almost SGD63,000 in training grants.
However, Liu Meiying claimed at trial that it was her subordinate and whistleblower, Jovis Lau Pin Lin, who was the real mastermind and that she had been framed.
Liu was convicted nonetheless of 27 charges. They are for instigating Jovis to carry out acts to perpetuate the fraud – including making online submissions to WDA and creating false receipts. She was sentenced to 27 months’ jail yesterday, but she intends to appeal against her conviction and sentence.
The court heard that Liu was the owner of Derma Floral Group, a trio of businesses offering beauty services and related courses, between 2011 and 2013.
In that same period, WDA had a scheme that disbursed funds to employers who sent their employees for training, and to business entities providing the training. Public funds were used to finance the training grants. Liu used Jovis to defraud the funding scheme, by deceiving WDA into disbursing SGD62,984 in training grants by submitting false information, concealing the fraud with sham receipts and submitting fraudulent documents during its auditing process.
Liu got Jovis to apply for training grants on the false premise that six trainees had met attendance requirements to qualify for the grants. She also masterminded the collection of money from two trainees to make CPF contributions on their behalf, to give the false appearance that they were her genuine employees. She also instructed Jovis to submit falsified trainee attendance records to WDA, so that the agency would not discover the scams and allow the company to retain the training grants.
The prosecution said Liu “showed no remorse” at trial, pushing the blame to Jovis and her former trainees and employees and painting Jovis as the mastermind behind all the offences.
She also claimed that Jovis had conspired with her former trainees to frame her in court, calling her a psychopath.
Liu’s lawyers, Shashi Nathan and Laura Yeo from Withers Khattar Wong, said the charges came as a complete surprise to Liu.
They said Liu was not involved in ensuring that the students attended the requisite number of hours for the claims. The lawyers also said any false or inaccurate attendance sheets submitted by Jovis were her own doing, and that Liu had trusted her entirely, believing she would perform her job dutifully.
According to the defence, Jovis did a poor job and the company’s administration was poorly managed.
Liu’s lawyers charged that Jovis had lied that she was acting on Liu’s instructions, to exculpate herself and because of a personal grudge she held.
However, District Judge Salina Ishak found that Liu was not a credible witness. Instead, she had known that four trainees were not her employees for the entire duration of their courses, and she had knowingly directed Jovis to submit the applications and claims.
