Billionairess' Fortune Goes to Charity, Lover Goes to Prison

BEIJING July 9, 2013— -- The enormous fortune of Hong Kong billionairess Nina Wang will all go to charity and her long time lover, a former bartender and self proclaimed fengshui master, will go to prison for 12 years after being convicted of forging her will.

The court said that former lover Peter Chan's attempt to pass himself off as the beneficiary of Wang's $10.7 million fortune showed "unparalleled greed."

Chan said the legal woes convinced him to convert Christianity, so he "had no regrets."

Nina Wang, nicknamed "Little Sweetie" for her girlish outfits and pigtail hairdo, inherited developer Chinachem and became the chairwoman after her husband Teddy was kidnapped in 1990. She built the company into a huge property developer, with office towers, apartment complexes and shopping malls throughout Hongkong. Her husband Teddy was declared dead in 1999 although his body was never found.

Peter Chan, 55, married with three children, is a former bartender and self-taught fengshui master. He changed his name from Tony to Peter after converting to Christianity earlier this year.

After Wang's death from cancer in 2007 at the age of 69, Chan announced himself to be the sole heir of her fortune in a 2006 will, partly because they have been lovers for 15 years. Wang had no children.

According to Chan's statement in court, the two met in 1992 when Wang sought out fengshui masters to help her find her missing husband. The relationship had begun in 1993 when Wang, then 55, asked the Chan, then 32, to give her a head massage and later turned into a body massage. Wang then asked Chan to cuddle her naked to sleep before they had their first sex in front of a statue of Buddha.

"During our time together, I would massage her, and we would then engage in loving, passionate sex," Chan said in his statement. "Nina very much took the initiative in this respect. I was captivated by her. She aroused great desire in me and we shared immense satisfaction in our sexual relationship."

The court fight over Wang's fortune has lasted four years until the court finally dismissed his claims in 2011, and the Hong Kong police charged Chan for forging her will. On July 4, the judge sentenced him to jail for 12 years in prison.

The judge said Chan was not content with the $387 million that Wang had given to him while she was alive and decided to claim her whole fortune.

When sentencing Chan, High Court Justice Andrew Macrae said Chan's attempt to claim her entire estate was "shameless, wicked and born of unparalleled greed" at the heart of a "well-executed and well-planned" crime.

Several weeks before his criminal trial began, Chan converted to Christianity and renounced fengshui, calling it "a work of evil", according to the South China Morning Post.

"Without the lawsuits, I would not have gone to church and would not have experienced God," Chan told the newspaper in an earlier interview. "I have no regrets."