HE TURNS 56 today, but Yeo Joo Meng will be celebrating his birthday behind bars after he was sentenced to four months in jail for having sex with an underage Vietnamese prostitute.
The warehouse assistant yesterday became the third man to be convicted of sleeping with the 16-year-old. Yeo pleaded guilty to paying her S$100 (RM245) for their tryst at a Geylang hotel.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Sabrina Choo told the court he met the girl at a coffee shop in the Geylang area in late 2010.
Noticing that she looked young, he asked for her age and she replied that she was 20.
He told her she looked only 18 or 19 and asked to see her passport, but she refused.
They had sex in July last year after she quoted him S$100.
The pair went to a hotel called The Sunflower.
Yeo was arrested on Aug 18, about two-and-half weeks after the girl was picked up for suspected vice activities in Geylang.
Pleading for leniency, lawyer Andrew Tan said his client was gullible and believed her when she said she was older than 18, the legal age of consent for prostitutes in Singapore.
He added that by pleading guilty, Yeo had brought closure to the case and saved the court’s valuable time.
A second charge was taken into consideration. Yeo could have been jailed for up to seven years, fined or both. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network
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