{"id":687190,"date":"2026-05-22T11:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T11:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/687190\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T11:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T11:18:11","slug":"melbourne-man-found-guilty-of-keeping-woman-as-a-slave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/687190\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne man found guilty of keeping woman as a slave"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Melbourne man who kept a woman as a slave in his house has been taken into custody, after a jury found him guilty following a six-week trial.<\/p>\n

Chee Kit Chong was accused of kicking the woman in the face, hitting her with a vacuum cleaner shaft and smashing her head through a wall during an eight-month period from February to October 2022.<\/p>\n

Today, a County Court jury returned guilty verdicts for charges of intentionally possessing a slave and assault, but cleared him of two other assault charges.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors alleged he forced the woman into unpaid labour, controlled her movements, food and sleep, exploited her financially, and denied her access to proper medical care.<\/p>\n

The woman, an Indonesian citizen who had overstayed her Australian visa, died in April 2024, aged 63. Her death was unrelated to the offending, the court heard.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Chee Kit “Max” Chong was found guilty of keeping a slave and assault, while his wife Angie Yeh Liaw was acquitted by the judge during the trial. (AAP: Mollie McPherson)<\/p>\n

Chong’s wife, Angie Liaw, was also charged with aiding an offence, but was acquitted by Judge Michael Cahill before the end of the trial.<\/p>\n

The woman lived with Chong and Ms Liaw at three Point Cook homes with their children.<\/p>\n

The court heard she first met Chong in 2015 <\/a>in Malaysia, where they developed a “quasi-familial relationship”, prosecutors alleged.<\/p>\n

The woman, who was referred to as “Mum”, lived with Chong in Australia in 2017 and later moved in with him and Ms Liaw in February 2022.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors alleged the woman completed domestic chores but was not paid and was threatened and assaulted by Chong.<\/p>\n

“He repeatedly told her she had to work to repay supposed debts. And when [the victim] failed to meet Mr Chong’s expectations \u2026 they would punish her by assaulting her, also by depriving her of sleep and food,” Crown prosecutor Shaun Ginsbourg SC told the trial.<\/p>\n

Police were alerted to the woman\u2019s plight when she attended hospital with a swollen ear and leg, a cut on her foot, bruising around her eye and signs of malnutrition.<\/p>\n

Chong denied starving or hitting the woman, and told police she fell by herself more than 20 times outside their home.<\/p>\n

During the trial, his barrister Diana Price said the woman was treated like a family member who was taken on trips and to parties. Ms Price said the woman completed household tasks out of a sense of moral “duty”.<\/p>\n

The defence lawyer told the jury they may find her client’s actions amounted to elder abuse or family violence \u2014 but not slavery.<\/p>\n

“She’s never been possessed by anyone,” Ms Price said.<\/p>\n

The slavery charge carries a maximum sentence of 25 years’ jail.<\/p>\n

Chong was taken into custody and will face a pre-sentence hearing next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Melbourne man who kept a woman as a slave in his house has been taken into custody,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[282434,43,331010,44,28983,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-687190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-chee-kit-chong","tag-headlines","tag-melbourne-slavery-case","tag-news","tag-slavery","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}