Downtown East Side residents are charged with worse and released without bail but they ask for $100,000 from this guy?
I think this is just a chance for the Vancouver police to look like good guys before they bus all the homeless out of the province for the Olympics
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VANCOUVER — David Ho, the 57-year-old Hong Kong-born billionaire and founder of now-defunct Harmony Airways, faces seven criminal charges, including unlawful confinement, various firearm offences and possession of a controlled substance.
The charges stem from a police investigation that began late last year, police said Monday.
Ho, whose full name is Ting Kwok David Ho, made contact with the alleged victim on a chat line on Dec. 28, 2008, police said.
The entrepreneur, who was described in a 2005 profile by author Peter C. Newman as a nighthawk whose brain “operates at Mach speeds with few respites,” picked up the woman and drove her back to his posh home off Vancouver’s Granville Street, police said.
At about 4:45 a.m. local time, according to police, the woman attempted to leave the residence and Ho allegedly stopped her by blocking the door.
The woman was able to call 911, but unable to tell the operator the address of Ho’s home. She scuffled with Ho while on the phone and suffered minor bruises and scrapes, police allege.
The unidentified woman managed to flee the house, fracturing her ankle. Her screams were heard by neighbours, who called the police. Police say they not only rescued the distraught woman, but also allege they found cannabis, cocaine and a 9-mm Glock handgun inside Ho’s house.
Ho was held in custody earlier Monday, then released after paying his $100,000 bail in cash. His first court appearance date is Oct. 26. Ho’s lawyer Len Doust could not be reached for comment.
Ho is the grandson of the founder of Hong Kong Tobacco Co., the former British colony’s leading cigarette distributor.
In 1998, author Newman, in the final volume of Titans, his trilogy on the Canadian establishment, examined the Chinese business diaspora in Canada. Ho was one of his featured super-wealthy immigrants.
Ho told Newman that his grandfather was one of the first major investors to finance Bill Gates’s Microsoft. Ho’s family was also an early investor in IBM and a major shareholder in HSBC, one of the world’s largest banks.
Ho arrived in Canada in 1984, at age 30, after graduating from a private, all-male school in Virginia. He told Newman that he came to Vancouver because his then-wife had relatives there.
“When I first came here,” Ho told Newman, “I’d never even heard of Vancouver before, but my wife was educated in Canada. . . . I was most impressed — it was like being in Disneyland. I drove down Granville Street, and all the houses had gardens. The weather was very nice, and I said, ‘We’re going to stay here.’ ”
A year later, Ho and his family moved to Vancouver and he eventually become a Canadian citizen.
Ho’s reputation as a high-flying entrepreneur in B.C. is largely due to his launch in 2002 of Harmony Airlines, which served popular U.S. destinations such as Maui, Las Vegas and Palm Springs.
Ho opted to stop funding the airline in 2007 because of empty seats and soaring costs.
Vancouver Sun
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