SINGAPORE - A Singaporean businessman who was due to start serving his two-month jail term for committing bigamy was found dead in an apartment on Wednesday.
Tan Tee Wee, 48, chief executive of an events company, was sentenced to jail in November last year for marrying a second time in New Zealand, despite already being married to another woman here. He had asked for his sentence to be deferred so he could spend the school holidays with his three children.
However, he was found dead in the Hilltops condominium at Cairnhill Circle, an upscale area in Orchard, on Wednesday, the day he was supposed to start his sentence.
A police spokesman said they received a call for assistance at about 4pm on Wednesday. Tan was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene. The cause of his death is under investigation.
Chinese evening daily Shin Min reported that the apartment was not his registered address and it is not known what he was doing there.
Tan, an undischarged bankrupt, married Ms Esther Tan Wee Yee at Auckland Marriage Registry in February 2010, while he was still married to first wife Madam Goh Geok Tin. Tan's marriage with Madam Goh was registered in 1988.
Tan told Ms Tan before they got married that he was going to file for separation from his first wife, and showed Ms Tan some papers as proof. They even threw a lavish wedding dinner at the St Regis Hotel in Singapore, but investigations revealed that he never started divorce proceedings. Ms Tan reported him to the police in 2013. He pleaded guilty in November last year.
