MINDEF said Amos Yee will be charged with his offences under the Enlistment Act if he is deported and returns to Singapore. - Photo: Screengrab from Illinois Department of Correction
SINGAPORE: Singaporean child sex offender Amos Yee is facing deportation from the US to Singapore after being paroled while serving a six-year jail term for child pornography and sexual grooming.
Yee, 27, who first rose to notoriety 10 years ago – when he posted an expletive-laden video four days after the death of founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew – was released from the Danville Correctional Center in Illinois on Thursday (Nov 20).
A notification from the Victim Information and Notification Everyday, or VINE, service at 7.14am Illinois time (9.14pm Singapore time) said Yee was let out of prison.
He was originally supposed to be released on Nov 7, with the service issuing a notification that he had been let out. Not even a minute later, a subsequent notification stated that he was taken into custody again.
A post on a blog maintained by his supporters dated some time earlier in the month said his release was delayed as Yee did not have a place to stay that would be located away from children, with the prison needing to find him a halfway house.
On Oct 6, another blog post said he was served papers from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while in prison. That means the US is likely to revoke his asylum status.
The Straits Times has asked ICE and the US Department of Justice for more information, including whether Yee will be housed in a detention facility while awaiting a hearing on his asylum status, and when it will take place.
According to information on the Illinois Department of Corrections’ website, Yee’s projected discharge date, or when he will be let off parole, is yet to be determined.
Yee, who has been in the US since December 2016, was granted asylum in March 2017.
The US Department of Homeland Security opposed his application, but the immigration judge presiding over his case ruled in his favour, after taking into consideration Yee’s claim that he faced persecution in Singapore for his political opinions.
Jailed twice in Singapore
Yee was sent to jail twice in Singapore – first in 2015, when he was given a four-week jail term for engaging in hate speech against Christians in a video he posted on YouTube.
He was also found guilty of publishing an obscene image of former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.
A year later, he was sentenced to six weeks’ jail and given a $2,000 fine for hate speech again, this time in videos and blog posts that were derogatory of Christianity and Islam.
In the US, he again ran afoul of the law.
Yee was sentenced in 2021 by a US court to six years’ jail after pleading guilty to two charges of child pornography and grooming.
He was 20 when the offences were committed in 2019, and, despite being told that the victim was 14 at the time of the offence, Yee repeatedly asked her to send him nude photos of herself, and engaged in role play and sexual fantasies.
Yee was first paroled on Oct 7, 2023, and was due to be released from jail on Oct 8, 2026.
As a sex offender in Illinois, his parole condition included restrictions such as not being allowed to use the internet without approval from the state corrections department, and not being allowed to be within the vicinity of a place where children would be, unless the department gave permission.
It is unclear which specific terms Yee had broken, but, barely a month after being released, he was sent back to prison on Nov 7, 2023.
If Yee is deported and returns to Singapore, the Ministry of Defence, in response to queries, said he will be charged with his offences under the Enlistment Act.
A MINDEF spokesperson said he had failed to report for pre-enlistment medical screening and remained outside the country without a valid exit permit.
For flouting enlistment rules, offenders can be fined up to $10,000, jailed for up to three years, or both. - The Straits Times/ANN
