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Teen who blackmailed ex-girlfriend with secretly filmed obscene videos jailed

Photo from Getty Images.
Photo from Getty Images.

He took sexually explicit videos of a woman he was dating without her knowledge.

After Jin Zhaojie dumped the woman, he became upset that she was seeing other men and uploaded the obscene videos onto his Tumblr account.

Jin, a 20-year-old China national, was jailed four months and two weeks on Wednesday (16 January) on one count of criminal intimidation and one count of transmitting obscene videos online. The woman, who is a foreign student studying here, cannot be named to protect her identity.

Jin met the 25-year-old woman through mutual friends in May last year. They entered into a relationship a while later and started having sex.

On one occasion, Jin used his mobile phone to film their sexual activities. The woman took the phone from him and deleted the video.

While they were having sex again a few days later, the man recorded the act. The woman told Jin not to do so but he lied that he was texting his friends.

In June, the couple had an argument and Jin decided to break up with the woman. He blocked her on social media and on the chat app WeChat.

Jin uploaded three obscene videos of the woman onto his Tumblr account out of frustration.

“He did so with the intention to humiliate the victim,” Deputy Public Prosecutor Rebecca Wong told the court.

On 20 June, Jin unblocked his ex-girlfriend on WeChat and saw a photograph of her hugging another man. Angry and jealous, Jin sent her the obscene videos to her via WeChat.

The woman was shocked and asked Jin to delete the videos but Jin refused. He claimed that he would delete the videos if she were to “do it one time” with him but the woman refused to do so.

Jin then threatened to send the explicit videos to the woman’s new partner. The woman agreed to meet Jin but Jin gave her a wrong address in order to “waste her time”, according to the prosecution.

The woman and a group of her friends managed to find and confront Jin, who claimed he had deleted the videos.

One of the woman’s friends called the police. When officers arrived, they checked Jin’s phone and found that he had uploaded the woman’s videos with his Tumblr application. Jin’s video post was not reposted and it was later taken down.

DPP Wong asked for a five-month jail term for Jin on the criminal intimidation charge and an unspecified jail term for the charge of transmitting obscene material.

Jin had “deliberately” taunted the woman by “sending her on a wild goose chase”, said the DPP.

Jin had also taken compromising videos of the woman. The videos clearly showed her face, potentially harming her reputation, added the DPP.

Jin’s lawyer, James Ow Yong, sought probation for his client, stating that his client resided with an uncle and aunt who could provide him with guidance. Should the request be rejected, Ow asked for a sentence of three to four months’ jail for his client.

District Judge Eddy Tham rejected the request for probation, saying that Jin ought to have known the seriousness of the threat and harm that could have been caused to the woman.

For criminal intimidation, Jin could have been jailed up to two years and/or fined. For transmitting obscene material, he could have been jailed up to three months and/or fined.

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