Greedy ipad SCDF officer

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/...d/1872956.html

SINGAPORE: A former director at the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), Jeganathan Ramasamy, said in court on Tuesday (May 26) that he assumed two iPads he obtained from SCDF vendors were for personal use.

The 63-year-old former SCDF technology director testified in the State Courts before District Judge Shaiffudin Saruwan, that he believed a text message he received by the vendor's representative indicated he was allowed personal use of the iPads, and not just for company purposes.

Jeganathan is claiming trial to two counts of criminal breach of trust involving the misappropriation of two iPad tablets in September 2011 entrusted to him for testing of SCDF mobile applications.

He allegedly gave one iPad to his daughter, and was believed to have sold the other one for S$200 to his colleague Eric Yap Wee Teck, then senior director for emergency services.

Yap is now commissioner of the SCDF, having been appointed to the position in February 2012.

In court on Tuesday, Jeganathan explained that he received a text from Mr Wong Soon Nam, the vice-president of communications engineering at NCS Pte Ltd, which is one of the IT vendors for the SCDF.

In that text received on Sep 26, 2011, Mr Wong had said the tablets were a "tool to facilitate testing" and "for you to trial".

Jeganathan said that he understood these phrases as signs that he could use the tablets to not only test out developing SCDF mobile applications, but to also test out his personal email in the hopes of purchasing the tablets later on.

However, he said he understood that SCDF was the rightful owner of the tablets and that Mr Wong had instructed him to test out the mobile applications first before discussing payment issues.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Hon Yi alleged that since Jeganathan owned an iPhone at that time, there was no need for the latter to need to test out the iPad's email function as it would be similar to that of the iPhone.

Rebutting the earlier point, Jeganathan said that he assumed the testing was to ensure everything was in order before payment was made.

He asked Mr Wong for the price of the iPad in four phone calls and two meetings after Sep 26, 2011, but was repeatedly told that the NCS vice-president would check on it later, he said. In Mr Wong's statement, he claimed he had known of the price of the iPads a few weeks before the interaction on Sep 26.

Jeganathan further revealed that he wanted to purchase the two iPads from NCS, as a previous order from the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) had not yet arrived. According to him, the IDA order was taking "a few months" to arrive. The tablets came shortly after the two NCS ones arrived, leading to a surplus.

An earlier statement from Commissioner Yap said he knew Jeganathan had bought a surplus of iPads, but Jeganathan said otherwise. According to the defendant, Mr Yap also did not know that there was a backup plan to obtain iPads from NCS.

The former SCDF director also revealed that he had accidentally sent to investigators, the tablet he had sold to Mr Yap. He did not want to do so as he did not want Mr Yap's name to be brought into the picture. Thus the prosecution is alleging that Jeganathan wanted to hide from investigators that Mr Yap had the other iPad.

Jeganathan was accompanied by his wife, as they went into court looking calm. He is represented by Mr Sanjiv Rajan from Allen and Gledhill.

If convicted, Jeganathan faces a jail term of up to 20 years and a fine on each charge.


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