A 40-year-old unemployed man with a history of crime spanning two decades has been sentenced to more than three years in jail for duping a woman into having sex with him and conning her out of more than US$13,500 by impersonating a Thai Buddhist master.
Mickey Fung Tin-ho, also known as Fung Chun-kit, previously pleaded guilty to 19 different charges, including 15 counts of theft, one count of fraud, and three counts of committing an unlawful sexual act by false means, Apple Daily reports.
All of these acts took place over a two-week period between August 24 and September 7 of last year.
According to the newspaper, Fung, posing as the Thai Buddhist master, introduced himself to his female victim — a 24-year-old referred to in court as X — in August and claimed that he could reincarnate the souls of her late mother and her aborted child.
He tricked X into renting a van for him to “collect the remnants of their souls” and also tricked her into buying an iPhone by claiming that he could keep their souls inside it.
Fung managed to convince X to part with about HK$106,000, which she paid to Fung via bank transfers, cash deposits, and top-ups to his electronic wallet.
He also claimed that he needed to build an artificial tree made of Thai baht and a golden sculpture of X’s dead mom for the ritual. He also got X to get some gold jewelry — that used to belong to her mom — for these purported religious ceremonies.
Fung then claimed to X that he needed to have sex with her so that her body could be “cleansed” for the supposed ritual, and that it needed to happen within 30 days otherwise the effectiveness of the ritual would be greatly reduced. As reported by Apple Daily, she agreed and they had sex three times, including oral and anal sex.
He was eventually arrested and revealed to police that he spent all the money he stole from X and that he had sold the items that he had obtained from her for the fake rituals. He also confessed to gaining X’s trust by claiming her late mom had asked him to take care of her and that he had warned X to keep the relationship secret otherwise the rituals wouldn’t work and bad luck would befall those who knew the truth.
While sentencing Fung at District Court yesterday, District Judge Eddie Yip Chor-man revealed that Fung had committed the offenses against X while he was on bail for two other unnamed cases, and that Fung’s criminal history includes more than 40 charges spanning 20 years, including theft, fraud, and unlawful sex with underage girls.
On.cc reports that, at a previous court hearing, X stated that her mental health has suffered since the incident and that she had lost trust in all men.
The outlet reported that X was only paid HK$13,000 (US$1,660) per month as a sales assistant, and that, despite not having a lot of money, Fung still defrauded her and even stole the last remaining valuables from her deceased mother.
The court heard that X was dismissed from her job last month because the incident had affected her performance at work and that she’s now unable to afford psychological counselling.
Yip said it was clear that, given Fung’s history of recidivism, he hadn’t learnt his lesson and decided that 38 months in jail was an appropriate sentence.
On.cc reports that the prosecution originally asked the defendant to pay HK$100,000 (US$12,800) in compensation to X, however the defense argued that Fung had no property or money in another bank account that he could use to pay her.
The prosecution confirmed to the court that they had checked Fung’s bank account and found that it only had a few hundred Hong Kong dollars.
In the end, Yip said that it was more appropriate to handle the compensation through the civil courts, seperately from the criminal case.
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