A 39-year-old man who had paid sex with a minor and filmed the acts without her consent was sentenced to 25 months’ jail.
Benjamin Huang Junlong pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual penetration of a 15-year-old and another two voyeurism charges. Eight similar charges were taken into consideration for his sentencing.
Based on Huang’s proceeded charges, his three victims were aged 15, 21 and 25.
He befriended the younger victims on money-for-love dating platform Sugarbook, and the oldest victim on dating app Tinder.
The court heard that the accused took an interest in the minor’s Sugarbook profile in December 2020, on which she had indicated her age as 19 years.
When they met, the victim confided in Huang about her family problems and told him she wanted to rent an apartment.
Huang offered to pay her S$1,800 a month for her companionship, on top of helping her with rent. The victim agreed.
They met between December 2020 and January 2021 for sex, the court heard. On Dec 26, 2020, and Jan 11, 2021, Huang secretly filmed them having sex using his mobile phone. He kept the videos for his own viewing pleasure.
The accused met the 21-year-old victim in 2019. Huang offered to be her “sugar daddy” and pay her for sexual services. She agreed. Between August 2019 and January 2021, they had sex on at least 10 occasions and Huang paid the victim more than S$16,000. He recorded them having sex on at least eight occasions using his mobile phone without the victim’s knowledge.
Huang got to know the 25-year-old victim in late 2019 or early 2020. They met on eight occasions to have sex. While the victim agreed to having her sex acts recorded by the accused using his phone, she did not know he had installed a mini wireless camera on top of a television to record her.
In March 2021, he was arrested on suspicion that he had commercial sex with a minor. Court documents did not state how his offences came to light.
Seeking 26 to 32 months’ jail for Huang, Deputy Public Prosecutor Sruthi Boppana said his offences were premeditated, and he demonstrated persistence in recording his victims.
She added that he took the 15-year-old victim’s age at face value and did not take any steps to verify it with her.
“The victims were clearly identifiable as the videos featured their faces and the accused labelled the videos with their names. There is potential risk of significant harm being caused to the victims if the videos were leaked,” she said. — The Straits Times/ANN
