SINGAPORE: A man facing charges that include cheating was out on bail when he had sex with an underage girl, and later lied to the police that a teenage boy had raped her.
Austin Toh En Zheng, 25, had decided to frame the 17-year-old boy out of revenge after a dispute over matters that were not disclosed in court documents.
The documents also did not mention how the girl was linked to Toh, who was sentenced to jail for three years, four months and six weeks on Dec 26.
He had pleaded guilty to seven charges for offences such as cheating, sexually penetrating the 15-year-old girl and providing a false statement to the authorities.
Toh started his crime spree around Jan 6, 2023.
Deputy public prosecutors Norman Yew and Ashley Chin stated in court documents that he had received “investment offers” from unknown persons on messaging platform Telegram promising him US$1,000 if he allowed them to access his bank accounts.
He received a similar offer around July 23 that year, and was promised $500.
Between January and July 2023, Toh gave these unknown people control and access to his five bank accounts, which were later used to receive more than $423,000 in total.
From this amount, more than $263,000 were from 17 victims of investment scams. The police later seized all five accounts, but by then, each account contained only between $1.58 and $8,000.19.
In an unrelated case, Toh also cheated a 23-year-old female acquaintance of more than $149,000.
She had allowed him to use her mobile phone on Jan 19, 2023, to book a hotel room via online platform Bookety.
The woman later decided to cancel the booking as the payment was wrongly made in US dollars instead of Singapore dollars.
Toh then suggested that she transfer all of her money in her bank account to another one belonging to their 23-year-old male acquaintance for “safekeeping” so that the funds would not end up with Bookety’s operator.
The woman complied and transferred more than $149,000 to the man’s bank account. On Jan 20, 2023, Toh told him to withdraw the money.
The man did as he was told and handed the cash to Toh, who gave him $30,000 from the amount. Toh also told him he had cheated the woman.
The man later decided he did not want to be part of the crime and alerted the police. Officers arrested Toh on Jan 26, 2023, and the woman got back nearly $131,000 of her money.
Toh, who had used more than $18,000 of the ill-gotten gains for gambling and drinking, was released on bail on Jan 28 that year.
Instead of keeping himself out of trouble, he had unprotected sexual intercourse with the 15-year-old girl five months later.
On June 28 that year, he had a dispute with the 17-year-old boy and decided to take revenge on him.
Toh encouraged the girl to make a false police report claiming that the boy had raped her.
A month later, Toh failed to turn up in court and a warrant of arrest was issued against him.
The girl lodged the false police report against the boy on Aug 8, 2023, as she was afraid Toh would hurt her. The police then started their investigation into the matter.
Meanwhile, Toh went on to cheat two people of iPhones worth nearly $3,000 in total in August and September 2023.
On Sept 18 that year, he surrendered himself to the police and was remanded.
He was at the Changi Prison Complex two months later when a policeman recorded a statement from him about the purported rape. Toh lied to the officer by claiming that the boy had raped the girl.
On March 22, 2024, the girl confessed to the police about her lies. Toh finally revealed the truth when officers confronted him. - The Straits Times/ANN
