A former private secretary to a member of parliament has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of cheating involving RM39,450 last year.

S. Saswin Nair, who worked for Tebrau MP Steven Choong, was charged with deceiving three men by offering them to buy homes under the government’s programme in Taman Daya here, prompting the men to give him the money as deposit. He was also charged with deceiving a man into giving him RM15,000 as deposit to buy jewellery last July.

Saswin was also charged with deceiving two men into believing that Choong had issued vouchers for a “Back To School”programme which could be redeemed for RM150 each. The offence were allegedly committed at the Tebrau MP Service Centre here in December last year.