SINGAPORE: A woman died by suicide after coming under financial stress, in part because she was dealing with two lawsuits initiated against her by a man linked to anti-vaccine group Healing the Divide.
State Coroner Adam Nakhoda on Thursday (Dec 12) ruled Geno Ong Kay Yong’s death on Sept 6 a suicide, saying the 46-year-old had made clear her intentions.
He added that no foul play was suspected.
At the time of her death, Ong was found with two handwritten notes that indicated her reasons for suicide.
One of them blamed her death on Raymond Ng, who is married to Iris Koh, founder of Healing the Divide.
Ong had also scheduled a Facebook post the day she died in which she detailed the impact of her mounting legal fees as a result of the lawsuits.
Said State Coroner Nakhoda: “Evident from her notes, it was clear to me she had developed a deliberate intention to commit suicide, and she had expressed the reasons for why she had to take this tragic course.
“Ms Ong had stated in her notes and her Facebook post that she was committing suicide due to the escalating legal costs she was facing, and her death was a call for justice.
“These were Ms Ong’s subjective reasons to take her own life,” he added.
In her Facebook post, Ong said the suits had caused her to incur costs.
At a hearing in November on Ong’s death, the senior investigation officer in charge of the case, Inspector Jeremy Kuan, revealed that her total legal fees were between $55,000 and $65,000.
Insp Kuan said Ong formed the view that Ng and “IK”, later established to be referring to Iris Koh, were targeting innocent, average Singaporeans who would be easily threatened and intimidated by suing them so they could get money.
Ong said in the post that she experienced health problems such as hair loss, nervous tics, blurred vision, failing memory and numbness in her limbs.
But because of her legal woes, she could not afford to see a doctor, she added.
In his findings, State Coroner Nakhoda noted a police statement provided by Ong’s lawyer.
In it, the counsel said Ong had displayed an increase in her anxiety levels since May 2024, after Ng launched a new defamation case against her.
She told her lawyer that she was stressed over the mounting financial cost of the legal fees, and the prospect of more lawsuits by Ng.
Insp Kuan said at the November hearing that Ng had initiated a total of four court proceedings against Ong from August 2021 until her death.
He filed two defamation suits against her, the first on Aug 24, 2021, and the second on June 24, 2024, seeking six-figure amounts as compensation in each suit.
He declined offers for mediation by claiming that Ong had continued to attack him on a daily basis, a claim Insp Kuan said Ng could not substantiate.
Ng also did not substantiate claims that Ong had been harassing him.
State Coroner Nakhoda said that Ng, who was in court with Koh and several of their friends, provided a conditioned statement after the hearing in November, but his statement did not shed light on why Ong decided to take her life.
Other cases
Ng was in the news earlier in December when a district court dismissed an application he had filed with his wife for former Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) Calvin Cheng to take down an allegedly defamatory Facebook post.
The application was part of a civil defamation suit that Koh, Ng and three claimants - Brad Bower, Bevan Tey and Chan Swee Cheong - launched against Cheng over his Jun 21 Facebook post on Covid-19 vaccinations.
In his Facebook post, Cheng had criticised people spreading misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines.
District Judge Chiah Kok Khun dismissed Ng, Tey and Chan’s defamation suit on grounds that the three were unidentifiable from Cheng’s post.
The trio were ordered to pay $2,500 plus GST in costs to Cheng.
As for the motion to make Cheng remove his statements and restrain him from making further such statements, the judge said the application failed as he found that the alleged defamatory statements were not clearly defamatory.
He ordered the five of them to pay Cheng $8,000 plus GST in costs.
In September, Koh and her husband were found to have abused court process in a separate matter. They were ordered to pay $12,000 in costs.
The pair had filed for a judicial review seeking a mandatory order to make the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) investigate and where necessary, prosecute entities using celebrities to advertise vaccinations.
The application was struck out by the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) on behalf of HSA.
The pair were found to have disclosed no reasonable cause of action from their application and were ordered to pay $12,000 to HSA.
Koh is slated to be back in court on Dec 16. She faces 14 charges for offences such as criminal conspiracy and harassment.
Several of her charges relate to alleged false representations made to the Ministry of Health involving Covid-19 vaccination certificates.
She is accused of committing the offences with suspended doctor Jipson Quah and seven others on seven occasions between 2021 and 2022. - The Straits Times/ANN
***Those contemplating suicide can reach out to the Mental Health Psychosocial Support Service (03-2935 9935/ 014-322 3392); Talian Kasih (15999/ 019-261 5999 on WhatsApp); Jakim’s family, social and community care centre (011-1959 8214 on WhatsApp); or Befrienders Kuala Lumpur (03-7627 2929/email sam@befrienders.org.my/visit www.befrienders.org.my/centre- in-malaysia).
