HONG KONG - A Hong Kong accountant who was friends with some of the city's most prominent citizens has been jailed for having sex with underage girls, a court official said Wednesday.

Henry Chui, 61, received a sentence of four years and eight months after he pleaded guilty to several charges involving three teenagers, although media reports quoted police as saying there were as many as 100 victims.

The youngest was 14, court records showed.

Chui's sentence Tuesday came after the court heard mitigation given in letters from Cheng Yu-tung, the billionaire head of property giant New World Development, and two daughters of Macau gambling tycoon Stanley Ho, local media reported.

His supporters also included lawmaker Timothy Fok and Hong Kong's deputy to China's National People's Congress, Ian Fok, the reports said.

When Chui, a father of five, was arrested in April last year, police found compact discs, video cassettes and photographs that showed him having sex with about 100 teenaged girls whom he had met online, reports said.

Most of the teens who were paid to have sex with Chui - about half were underage - declined to cooperate with the police investigation, local media said.

-AFP