By Elena Chong
A 1993 SOUTH-EAST Asia Games taekwondo gold medallist was fined
a total of $29,000 on Friday for corruption and vice-related
offences.
Wong Jing Ching's wife, Shirinbekova Yelena, 23, an Uzbekistan
national, was also fined $8,000 for living on the immoral earnings
of a prostitute, and helping him to manage a contact point for
prostitutes in 2010.
Wong, alias Patrick Champion Wong, 40, was 22 when he won the
flyweight category of the taekwondo competition at Yishun Sports
Hall. He admitted to eight charges with 17 others taken into
consideration during his sentencing. Three of them were for living
on the immoral earnings of a Uzbekistan prostitute, receiving the
21-year-old prostitute at the airport, and managing a place of
assignation at Landmark Village Hotel between April 29 and June 2
2010.
He bribed security supervisor Sazali Kassim, 31, $1,200 on each
of four occasions between January and May 2010, in exchange for not
reporting suspected vice-related activities in the hotel to the
management. Wong also abetted Sazali to give a $600 bribe to the
latter's colleague, Mr Muhammad Farhan Osman, 23, in April then,
for the same purpose.
The offences were uncovered on June 1 2010, when Wong asked
plainclothes police officers near Orchard Towers if they were
interested in sexual services provided by 'Russian prostitutes'. He
ferried them in his taxi to the Victoria Street hotel and led them
to a room to view the five Uzbekistan prostitutes.
Shortly after, a team of police officers raided the room and
detained Wong and the women. The couple started to arrange for
Shirinbekova's friends to carry out prostitution in Singapore and
received commissions from them for every customer they served.