A doctor who found a blank cheque and tried to use it to commit forgery was sentenced to four months' jail on Wednesday.
Lai Jenn Wuu, who had gambling debts, filled it in the cheque and went to cash it for $50,000 using the owner's identity card. But he was caught after a vigilant cashier noticed he did not look like the man in the picture.
The 28-year-old Malaysian, who lives in China, was here on a social visit when he stumbled across the wallet in the carpark of a Paterson Road condominium. It contained the identity card, several credit cards and the blank cheque.
After forging the owner's signature, he presented it to POSB cashier Angelia Ho Li Chen on Feb 13 last year. She asked him for identification because of the high amount. But when he handed over the identity card, she was not convinced he was the 36-year-old man in the photograph, Mr Nio Chiaren.
She then asked him to sign the back of the cheque but his signature turned out to be different from the signature he had forged on the front of the cheque. Lai gave a thumb print, but the cashier saw it did not match that on the identity card and went to the back office to alert her supervisors.
The doctor pleaded guilty to forgery. He is now out on $20,000 bail while he appeals against the sentence. The date of the hearing has yet to be announced.