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| The Filipina appeared in Kwun Tong court, charged with illegally collecting money from the job applicants |
Eighteen charges were filed in Kwun Tong Court Macau .
Her boss was linked to only one of the charges of “engaging
in a commercial practice that constitutes wrongly accepting payment for a
product.”
Marijane Biscocho, 42, and her boss Lennis Ebrahim, 55,
originally faced a charge of “applying a false trade description to a service
offered to consumers” in connection with the case.
But the original charge was withdrawn, and Biscocho was
instead charged with 17 counts of the new offense, and one for Ebrahim.
The prosecution said the charges against Biscocho were filed
after Customs officers received additional complaints against her.
The new charge was not read out in court, but it was listed
on the new hearing date for the two on the HK Judiciary’s website.
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Magistrate Chui adjourned the hearing until May 21 for
further investigation and legal advice. She remanded Biscocho in custody, and
extended Ebrahim’s bail.
Ebrahim, owner of the unlicensed WHT Consultants Co. that
allegedly carried out the recruitment, was named in only the fourth of the new
charges, the prosecutor said, but did not give details.
All the charges are related to the alleged collection of placement
fees from the Filipino applicants for fictitious jobs in Hong Kong and Macau .
Magistrate Ivy Chui suspended the hearing in the morning after
learning that Biscocho was not represented by a lawyer. She told the defendant
to go to the Duty Lawyer Service to apply for legal representation.
“You need a lawyer to represent you because you are now
facing 18 charges,” the magistrate told the Filipina.
The hearing resumed about half past noon when a lawyer
assigned to Biscocho arrived.
Chui, however, withheld the reading of the new charges in
court as Ebrahim was again absent from the hearing reportedly due to sickness.
She did not appear either in the earlier hearing on Apr 7.
Ebrahim’s lawyer applied anew for an order that will allow
his client to report to police only every Saturday, but Chui did not allow it.
The application was similar to one refused by another
magistrate, Andrew Mok previously.
