S Saswin Nair, 27, who was formerly private secretary to Tebrau MP Steven Choong, made the plea after the charges were read out to him before magistrate Haffiza Jemali.

On the first to the fourth count, Saswin was charged with deceiving three men by offering them to purchase affordable homes under the Johor government’s RMBJ programme in Taman Daya here, prompting the three men to hand over RM9,150, RM7,000 and RM8,000 respectively to him as deposit payment.

The offences were allegedly committed at Taman Nusa Jaya in Iskandar Puteri, Bandar Seri Alam, and Taman Setia Tropika here between Nov 22 and Dec 25, 2018.

On the fifth count, he was charged with deceiving a man into handing him RM15,000 as deposit to purchase jewellery at a gold shop on Jalan Wong Ah Fook, here last July 27, but no delivery was made.

All the charges were framed under Section 420 of the Penal Code, which provides imprisonment for up to 10 years, whipping and a fine if found guilty.

On the sixth and seventh count, Saswin was charged with deceiving two men into believing that Choong issued vouchers for the “Back To School” programme, which could be redeemed for RM150 each, a claim which was found to be false.

The offence were allegedly committed at the Tebrau MP service centre here in December last year.

The charge, under Section 417 of the Penal Code, provides imprisonment of up to five years, or fine, or both, if Saswin is found guilty.

The magistrate offered Saswin bail of RM14,000 in two sureties for all charges and fixed Oct 23 for case management.

The prosecution was conducted by deputy public prosecutors Chan Choon Yew and Adilah Nur Yahya, while Saswin was represented by lawyer Iskandar Shah Ibrahim.