Irregularity in the three-diamond case

In the petition filed with the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City, Ms. Tang, an American overseas Vietnamese, said that on April 23, 2018 she gave Mr. Khanh a ring and diamond earrings worth 37 billion VND for help. The delivery and receipt are made into a record by both parties with signatures and fingerprints. Mr. Khanh is entitled to a commission of 15% of the sale amount, the payment due date is July 30, 2018.

Ms. Tang said that after three months, she still had not received the money for the sale of the diamond, so she sued Mr. Khanh, demanding to pay an amount of 31 billion VND (deducting commissions) and late payment interest until the date of the court’s preliminary judgment. judge.

Sending a report to the court (before the case was tried), Mr. Khanh said he had never met and did not know Ms. Tang. Nor did he accept, or sign any diamond receipts, with anyone. The only document with his fingerprints in red ink is the contract for the sale of two villas signed with Cong – the son of Ms. Loan (Mr. Khanh’s business friend) in December 2017.

When being sued, Mr. Khanh discovered that Ms. Tang and Ms. Loan had a relationship. In it, both have the same authorized representative. According to him, the diamond receipt Ms. Tang provided to the court was fake, with the aim of colluding with others to appropriate her money. This he reported to the police.

The defendant alleges that the papers in the contract for the sale of two villas were swapped to be faked as diamond receipts. He presented, he and Ms. Loan are familiar places for many years, many times lent her tens of billions of dong to do business. In 2017, Ms. Loan offered to sell him two of her son’s villas to offset part of the debt.

On the day Mr. Khanh and his wife came to sign the purchase and sale contract, Ms. Loan said that Cong had a job, so he would be late. After reading the contract they prepared, he and his wife were invited by Ms. Loan to go upstairs to see the interior and then come down to sign it later. When he came back down, he saw that the papers were stacked on top of each other, covering the content above, but he and his wife subjectively did not read it again, so they signed and fingerprinted.

Accordingly, Mr. Khanh disagreed with Ms. Tang’s petition, and at the same time made a counter-claim, asking the court to force the plaintiff to pay compensation for mental loss, travel expenses and hire a lawyer.

Not present according to the summons, Ms. Tang only submitted a presentation to the court. In her testimony, she said, after meeting Mr. Khanh at the Ocean Palace hotel restaurant on the afternoon of March 23, 2018, she trusted and asked him to sell her three diamonds. Through many meetings, on April 23, 2018, she delivered a diamond ring and earrings, making a receipt with Mr. Khanh.

At the end of AprilAfter many unsuccessful conciliation attempts, the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City opened a first-instance trial. Ms. Tang continued to be absent and sent a representative to attend the court session.

The jury asked many questions about the shape of the diamond, whether separate or attached to rings and earrings, how to bring it back to Vietnam, the diamond delivery process with Mr. Khanh… However, Ms. Tang’s representative refused to answer.

Mr. Khanh’s side maintained the same view, claiming that he had never met Ms. Tang. According to the defendant, her testimony is not true, because Ms. Tang said she met him at the hotel on March 23, 2018, but at this time he was at a bank to carry out procedures for savings accounts. savings and withdrawals. This was confirmed with the court by the banker. Second, Ms. Tang claimed to have given him the ring and earrings, but in the receipt provided to the court only three diamonds were not attached to the jewelry.

After studying the file, the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City rejected Ms. Tang’s request to sue. According to the panel, during the process of accepting Mr. Khanh’s denunciation, the Ministry of Public Security had to examine the “diamond receipt” and other documents, resulting in a receipt for three diamonds and a sales contract for two diamonds. The villa between Mr. Khanh and Mr. Cong (who has related rights and obligations) has the same typeface, font size, spacing… The content of the receipt is “overprinted, added later.” , on the date, signature parts”. According to the verification results of airport customs, from 2016 to now, Ms. Tang has entered Vietnam three times but did not declare that she was carrying three diamonds.

In addition, Ms. Tang could not provide the court with the original, a photocopy of the diamond certificate – GIA, or the “birth certificate” of this property.

The jury said that Ms. Tang had many contradictory statements and could not provide any pictures of the diamonds. Therefore, the existence of the three diamonds is “not real, there is no diamond delivery”.

“The fact that the plaintiff stated that he trusted and assigned Mr. Khanh to self-assess and sell three diamonds of great value without witnesses, did not make a delivery record, even though he did not know Mr. Khanh before and meeting only once in a restaurant, is not convincing,” the judgment stated.

Khanh’s counterclaim, the jury also did not accept it because “the defendant was also at fault when he signed the contracts without carefully checking and verifying the information”.

Regarding the fact that he thought that the plaintiff had made up a story to appropriate his property, the court said that the Ministry of Public Security had replied in writing that “there is not enough basis to handle fraud” because in fact the property has not been usurped.

Rosemary

*The applicant’s name has been changed.