Unemployed man admits to asking girlfriend to prostitute herself
SINGAPORE — After losing money from gambling at a casino, a man asked his girlfriend to sell nude photos and videos of herself to make a quick buck.
The woman, who had just turned 18, agreed to help him.
However the 28-year-old man’s suggestions escalated when he failed to find a job. He then asked his girlfriend to support him financially by performing nude phone calls, and sell her used underwear.
When the victim’s customers began asking for sexual services, the man convinced the reluctant woman to take up the offers and turned violent when she did not want to.
The victim’s plight came to light when her nude videos were found in the “Nasi Lemak” Telegram chat.
By then, the victim had earned more than $40,000 from all her services, with the man using the money to pay for his living expenses.
The man, who cannot be named to protect the victim’s identity, pleaded guilty to two charges under the Women’s Charter for knowingly living in part on the earnings of prostitution by his girlfriend and by managing the provision of her sexual services.
He had been convicted in 2016 for prostituting women, aged 17 to 22, and was sentenced to jail. But he further committed offences while out in remission.
Separately, the man pleaded guilty to one count of criminal breach of trust and will have two other charges of a similar nature taken into consideration for sentencing.
The man began dating the woman, now 20, after meeting the Filipina through a dating application while in the Philippines between September and October 2018. She was 17 at the time.
In January 2019, he asked the woman to accompany him to Singapore to meet his parents. He also asked her to remain by his side as he needed her to bail him out in case that police were investigating him. However, the couple returned to the Philippines a few days later without incident.
During the same period, the man began losing money from gambling in the casino. He suggested that his girlfriend sell nude photos and videos, as well as perform live video calls performing sexual acts. The woman, who had just turned 18, agreed.
The man would then take nude photos of the woman and send them to her customers, charging $10 for four photographs, and $10 for a minute of a video. Video calls were pegged at $25 for every five minutes.
The couple returned to Singapore on 3 April 2019 and the man was arrested for prior offences. His girlfriend sought help from the man’s parents to bail him out. The man’s father declined to do so, and instead purchased the woman a plane ticket to Philippines.
After the man was bailed out, he begged her to remain in Singapore and kept her passport so that she would not leave without his knowledge. He asked her to enrol in a local school to remain with him and she agreed.
Unable to find a job, the man began asking his girlfriend to sell her used underwear to supplement their income. They charged $35 for each pair of underwear, delivered to customers through POPstations, $50 to have the underwear delivered in person, and $80 for the girlfriend to remove her underwear in front of her customers.
When the woman’s customers started asking for sex in May 2019, the woman was reluctant. However, the man managed to persuade her, claiming that he needed money to engage a lawyer. The woman charged between $150 and $1,000 for her services.
The man managed her bookings and even pretended to be his girlfriend while contacting her customers.
Eventually, when the woman became even more reluctant, the man hit her and threatened to expose her nude photos to her mother on her social media account. She continued providing sexual services out of fear.
The woman reached out to the man’s father and two of her customers for help, and they advised her to lodge a police report. However, she did not do so for fear of her mother finding out and getting the man into trouble.
Her plight still came to light after her nude videos surfaced on Telegram.
By then, she had had sex with 20 to 30 customers, and earned between $9,000 and $13,500.
Police officers raided the victim’s unit on 14 October 2019 and she was later placed in a woman’s shelter. Meanwhile, the man went on the run and sought help from a Vietnamese prostitute who had previously serviced him.
He promised to pay off her debts in exchange for her help in registering for hotel rooms.
Separately, he siphoned $40,000 from a company whose director he had cheated. He helped the director set up the company, from which he committed criminal breach of trust.
Of the pocketed money, the man used $22,800 to buy a Rolex watch and a gold bangle to compensate the Vietnamese prostitute. The remaining cash was found on him when he was arrested.
Between 15 and 18 October 2019, the girlfriend managed to procure a phone to contact the man in secret. This phone was seized by the police and the man was arrested in a hotel room on 18 October 2019.
The man will be sentenced on Friday by District Judge May Mesenas.
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