Man forged father's signature, took $27k

Shortly after being released from prison, a 26-year-old man forged his father's signature on blank cheques and made off with $27,000 of the older man's money.

For forgery and an unrelated theft charge, Eugene Goh Ting Guang was jailed for 10 months yesterday.

He pleaded guilty to theft and two counts of forgery. Six other charges for similar offences were taken into consideration during sentencing.

In 2015, Goh was sentenced to 20 months' jail with nine strokes of the cane for crimes involving unlicensed money lending.

He was released last year and was under a remission order, which is usually given to inmates for good behaviour. He was not supposed to commit another offence during the duration of this order.

But he breached it and, yesterday, was given an additional sentence of 54 days' jail - the term being the remaining duration.

This means he will spend a total of 10 months and 54 days behind bars.

On Dec 12 last year, he took one of Mr Goh Eng Siang's cheques and forged the latter's signature.

He penned down his own name as the payee and stated the amount payable as $5,000.

In all, he stole seven of his father's cheques and helped himself to the older man's money from December last year to this January.

Each transaction involved $3,000 to $5,000.

His father later found out about the unauthorised transactions and lodged a police report on Feb 7, even though he suspected his son of taking his cheque book.

Separately, the court heard that Goh used to work for food and beverage company Tandem Collective, which runs A Poke Theory restaurant in Boon Tat Street near Robinson Road.

On July 1, he was on duty at the eatery when he opened the cash register and stole $800 - the sales proceeds from the previous day.

The company director later found out about the incident and lodged a police report on July 20.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Chua Xyn Yee told the court that Goh has not made restitution.

Shaffiq Alkhatib

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on November 01, 2017, with the headline Man forged father's signature, took $27k. Subscribe