Ms. Calisa Cheong Mei Ing, a 40-year-old self-styled property investor, returned to court on Tuesday after her mitigation plea was rejected in 2009.
Ms. Cheong, who has been in jail since July 2009, faces 74 counts of cheating tenants of rent money and getting credit as an undischarged bankrupt.
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In October 2009, when she appeared in the subordinate courts, she said that she wanted to plead guilty in order to hasten her sentence. She wanted to support her four children and resume work as soon as possible.
However, the single mother decided to fight her case after her mitigation plea was rejected due to her insistence on being innocent. The Law Society then assigned a lawyer to her.
But Ms. Cheong told District Judge Toh Yung Cheong in court on Tuesday, that she would be representing herself as she had discharged the lawyer assigned to her by the Law Society.
According to one of the victims, Mr. Liu Guo, a Chinese national, Ms. Cheong had told him that she owned a flat at Geylang Bahru.
Mr. Liu withdrew S$3,000 from his bank account and gave it to her when she told him that she was then pregnant and needed money. He also transferred another S$4,000 from his bank account to hers.
When Mr. Liu went to view the flat together with his wife, he discovered that the unit belonged to an Indian family. He called Ms. Cheong, but she told him that he should inform her first if he wanted to view the flat again.
She wanted to strike a rental deal with the flat owners, but Mr. Liu jumped the gun and alarmed the owners, Ms. Cheong said as she tried to rebut Mr. Liu’s testimony.