Former Feng Shui master lost convicted for forging late female tycoon’s will

Peter Chan, who once alleged to be a Feng Shui master, was held guilty for forging the will of late female tycoon Nina Wang on Thursday.

Born Tony Chan, Peter Chan waited behind the bar of the Court of First Instance in Hong Kong for his verdict at 9pm of Thursday, from a jury comprised of three women and five men.

Chan, allegedly a Christian now, was charged of two counts, being forgery and using a false instrument. The jury passed guilty decisions of both counts, by a vote of 6-2 and 7-1 respectively.

Chan attempted to use the forged will to claim Wang’s HK$83 billion estate as the the sole beneficiary, in a lengthytrial with Chinachem Charitable Foundation, which was set up by Wang.

His sentence will be announced on Friday. He was put into custody for the rest of the night. The maximum term of imprisonment of each count of the offences could be up to 14 years,

In the course of the hearing, Chan’s facial expression changed from time to time. He kept looking at his wife Tam Miu-Ching, who was sitting on the dock. Before leaving the court, Chan undid his tie and his watch, and smiled at his lawyers.

Looking upset, Tam refused to comment on her own emotion at the time, and whether her husband will apply for an appeal of the decision.

To attach Chan’s character, David Perry, the prosecutor, raised Chan’s 10 previous criminal convictions: four counts of obtaining properties by deception, four counts of obtaining services by deception, one count of attempted obtaining properties by deceptionand the rest being attempted obtaining properties by deception.

In brief, Perry said in 1986, Chan falsely asserted that he worked as a qualified doctor for Hong Kong’s Kwong Wah hospital and Queen Mary hospital respectively, earning 330,000 and 460,000 Hong Kong dollars for these two hospitals, to apply for American Express’ gold credit cards.

By doing so, Chan illegally obtained 96,000 Hong Kong dollars.

He was then arrested, fined 20,000 Hong Kong dollars for each count of conviction.

Perry also applied to court to pay for the cost preliminary inquiry requested by Chan, being 2.11 million Hong Kong dollars, as well as the 86568 Hong Kong dollars incurred from previous DNA examination.

But the court did not makeany decisionconcerning the application.