Ex-manager of Hong Kong gov’t contractor given 160 hours’ community service over extorting staff of HK$38,000
Hong Kong Free Press
A Hong Kong court has handed a community service order to the former manager of a cleaning company contracted by the government over extorting HK$38,000 from three employees.
Choy Wai-hong, who the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) charged with three counts of fraud, appeared at the Kwun Tong Magistrates’ Court on Friday after earlier pleading guilty. The 50-year-old was a manager of Sparkle Environmental Services Limited, a cleaning company contracted by the government’s Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD).
He was in charge of supervising the company’s cleaners in Sai Kung and handling matters related to recruitment and employment contracts.
Choy was convicted of deceiving three cleaners by telling them that Sparkle had miscalculated their wages, and demanded they gave him the difference of HK$38,000 between August 2020 and July 2022.
His claims to the workers were made without Sparkle’s authorisation, and he did not return the wages he defrauded out of them.
Magistrate Betty Lau said Choy, in committing the crime, was “snatching from the beggar’s bowl” given that the three cleaners did not earn much.
Considering that Chow was remorseful, though, Lau imposed a community sentence on him. Lau also ordered Choy to return the HK$38,000 to the three cleaners.
According to the Theft Ordinance, a person convicted of fraud faces up to 14 years imprisonment. The maximum sentence that can be imposed in a magistrate court, the city’s lowest courts, is two years and a fine of HK$100,000. Magistrates can also hand down other types of sentencing such as community service or probation orders.
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