A 44-year-old teacher was convicted yesterday of counterfeiting two S$100 (US$73) notes and using them to pay a Vietnamese woman for sex in August 2015. Daniel Wong Wun Meng, a physical education and math teacher at Bukit Batok Secondary School — where he has been suspended from duty since December 2015 — was found guilty of two charges after a nine-day trial.
For each charge, he could have been jailed for up to 20 years, reported TODAY. Wong confessed to forging the notes, but claimed he did not intentionally use them to pay for sex.
The incident occurred back in 2015, when Wong headed to seedy Orchard Towers at 12:30am on Aug 3 after a late night celebrating his wife’s birthday and prepping for his classes, Channel NewsAsia noted. It was there that he met the Vietnamese lady and offered her S$200 (US$146) for her “services”.
Wong drove the woman to Fragrance Hotel at Balestier Road, where he admitted that she gave him a “full body massage” and they had sex. He paid her with the two forged bills and dropped her off near Kim Yam Road before returning to his Clementi Woods condominium — that was when he discovered he had “mistakenly” paid her with the wrong notes, he claimed.
When the woman attempted to pay for purchases at a supermarket with one of the notes, Wong’s offence was uncovered, and the cashier called the police.
Wong was arrested on Aug 20 at his school.
During the trial, Wong said he created the counterfeit notes at home on Jul 24 with a photocopier, aluminium foil, and A4-sized paper, calling it a “pretty simple” process. He claimed it was “an experiment” to use as a “teaching tool” for his students, as he thought most of them had never seen a $100 note before, reported The Straits Times.
“Since it was SG50, I wanted to infuse national education in my subject,” he explained, adding that he wanted to teach his students about currency exchange. But when the teacher heading the school’s mathematics curriculum testified, it came to light that currency exchange was not included in the syllabus for Secondary 3 students.
Unconvinced by Wong’s explanation, District Judge Terence Tay said that his evidence was perceived as “an afterthought or as embellishment”, as he did not tell anyone in his math department that he would be using the counterfeit notes in class. Wong also came across as “hesitant and evasive” when building his case.
Wong is out on bail and will be sentenced at a later date.
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