WELL KNOWN TV host Marcus Chin, 57, asked his then-management company in 2008 to employ a young woman as his assistant manager.

He even asked to have her $2,500 monthly salary deducted from his own salary. The woman turned out to be his mistress.

Chin, who is also a radio DJ and actor, is now embroiled in a court case where his estranged wife is asking for more maintenance money.

The case, who began last October, runs like a Taiwanese soap opera as juicy details about their marriage and his romance with a younger woman are revealed.

In the latest "episode" played out in the Family Court yesterday, the person who spilled the beans on the employment of Chin's mistress, ironically, was a woman whose husband had also cheated on her.

Madam Irene Kng, 46, said in her affidavit tendered to court that Chin had approached J Team Productions in November or December 2008 to employ Miss Eileen Cheah as his assistant manager.

Madam Kng is the company's finance and administrative manager. She is also the wife of film-maker Jack Neo, whose two-year affair with a 22-year-old model was exposed last March.

Miss Cheah, 25, is Chin's current girlfriend and mother of his baby daughter.

The company agreed with Chin that if his salary was not enough to cover the $2,500 to be paid to Miss Cheah, the remaining sum would be deducted from his salary the following month.

Chin was an artiste with J Team Productions from 2000 to 2009, when he terminated his contract one year prematurely.

Madam Kng said that other than Chin, none of its artistes had an assistant manager. Among them were actors/hosts Mark Lee, Henry Thia and John Cheng aka Ah Nan.

According to the affidavit, Miss Cheah was employed by the company from December 2008 to June 2009. The court papers also revealed that J Team and its subsidiary, Marcus Production, paid Chin $74,980 in 2007, $23,620 in 2008 and $33,391 in 2009.

Thanked

When Madam Kng stepped down from the witness stand after testifying 10 minutes yesterday, Chin's wife, Madam Murong Ying, 54, stood up, shook her hand and thanked her several times.

Chin, who also took the stand yesterday, said Madam Murong was the one who had decided on the terms of separation.

"I agreed to her requests because I wanted to leave her as soon as possible. I didn't consider whether I'd be able to meet her demands... I was confused and not quite stable emotionally," he said.

He added that she later came up with more demands.

"She refused to sign the separation papers. She had new requests; for example, she wanted me to give her $1 million to go back to Taiwan and reclaim her citizenship," Chin said. "She also wanted me to give her $200,000 as a security fund and settle her funeral expenses when she passed on. I wasn't able to agree to her requests."

Chin did not elaborate on what he meant by security fund.

He also denied bullying his wife, saying that she was not someone who's easily bullied because of her fiery temper and domineering character.

"I'm the one bullied by her... If she was bullied by me, I wouldn't have left her or wanted to divorce her," he said.

He denied he had deliberately reduced her maintenance fees from $5,000 to $1,000 in June 2009 to bully her.

He said it was because he had cashflow problems after paying her $5,000 a month for eight months. Chin was also asked about an SMS which he sent Madam Murong in May 2009 to ask her to say good things about Miss Cheah to the media.

Madam Murong's lawyer, Mr Sng Kheng Huat, had suggested that his client's refusal had led to Chin's reduction of his maintenance to $1,000 the following month.

The SMS, written in Mandarin, read: "If you refuse to go on the programme and say a few words, then the injury inflicted on me will be very great.

"Some people feel that I dumped you because I'm a bit famous now. I'm shouldering a very heavy accusation. Only you can help me with just a few words. Please consider."

Chin said a TV station had wanted to invite Madam Murong on a programme so he passed the message to her, and that the message was not meant to enhance Miss Cheah's public image.

Borrowed money

He also said he even had to terminate his insurance policies and borrow money from friends to support Madam Murong.

He also withdrew about $22,000 from his CPF account after he turned 55. Some of it went to paying the maintenance and some to his living expenses.

Chin also spoke about their many disagreements a few years after they married in 1986.

He thought about leaving her seven years into the marriage, and their relationship deteriorated further in recent years.

"When we had a problem, she said it wasn't her fault and that it was mine, so we had nothing to talk about," he said.

As his TV and radio work is part-time, Chin said his income was not stable and Madam Murong could find a job to supplement her income.

"She can sing, she knows the foundation of beauty care and has taken up a course to be a tour guide. She had also worked in a direct sales company and with her eloquence, she's suited to doing sales. She can definitely find a job," he said.

Their lawyers will make their submission by March 28.

ABOUT THE CASE

MARCUS Chin met Madam Murong Ying in the 1980s after she came to Singapore from Taiwan to work as a singer.

They married in 1986.

In October 2008, he asked her for a separation.

He allegedly wrote her a letter promising to pay her $5,000 a month as maintenance.

The letter also stated that she would continue to live in the matrimonial home and he would pay the housing loan, electricity, water and phone bills and her insurance payments.

Chin paid her $5,000 for eight months.

But for several months after that, he reduced the amount to $1,000.

In November 2009, the court ordered him to give her $3,000 a month and another $600 for the HDB loan instalment.

Madam Murong is now asking for a monthly maintenance allowance of $5,000, as he had allegedly promised her that amount.

The couple are separated, but not divorced.

This article was first published in The New Paper.