SINGAPORE: A Singaporean man befriended an underage girl living overseas and made her perform sex acts during video chats.
At around the same time, he was being investigated for sexually exploiting another minor.
In September 2020, Sebastian Lye Chee Weng, now 32, stopped communicating with the American girl living in the state of Georgia, after he was convicted and sentenced to over eight months’ jail in the earlier case.
Following his release, Lye was placed on a remission order, and was supposed to keep himself out of trouble from March 20 to June 13, 2021.
However, he had a video call with the American girl during his remission and asked her to perform a sex act, which she complied.
Police later raided his home in April 2022 and found that he had 12,755 files of sexually explicit material involving children.
On June 5, Lye was sentenced to five years and 11 months’ jail, and three strokes of the cane.
He also has to spend an additional 66 days behind bars after breaching the remission order.
The man had pleaded guilty to multiple offences including sexually exploiting a child.
Court documents stated that in October 2018, Lye befriended the girl, who was then 12 years old, on a social media platform.
Even though he was 24 years old at the time, he claimed to be 17 years old to lower her guard.
The girl entered into a relationship with him, and they communicated on platforms such as Skype and Snapchat.
Around the same time, police were also investigating Lye for offences relating to his sexual exploitation of another child.
Court documents did not disclose details of the case.
On Nov 14, 2018, officers raided his home in relation to that case and arrested him.
After he was released, Lye sexually exploited the American girl on at least 61 occasions between Nov 23, 2018 and Dec 1, 2019, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Benedict Teong.
Lye requested that she perform sexual acts, and recorded those acts and took screenshots.
He was later convicted in the other case in September 2020 and was jailed.
In April 2021, a month after his release, he had a video call with the American girl, who was then 14 years old.
She complied when he asked her to do a sexual act. He then took two screenshots of her.
In text messages on May 13 that year, Lye threatened to send the intimate recordings of her to “everyone she knew”.
The DPP said: “The accused had threatened her... because he did not want their relationship to come to an end.
“The victim replied to his message, asking for the accused to leave her alone,” he added.
The next day, Lye passed several sexually explicit photographs of the girl on to another person.
She then told her parents about what Lye had done.
Her father reported the matter to the US authorities, who alerted the Singapore Police Force.
On June 5, defence lawyer Nelson Chee told the court that his client has “depressive symptoms”.
The lawyer also said that there is a contributory link between Lye’s condition and his offences.
Lye’s bail has been set at $20,000, and he is expected to begin serving his sentence on June 19. - The Straits Times/ANN
