Singaporean Amos Yee back in custody in the US a month after release on parole - CNA

Singaporean Amos Yee has been taken into custody in the United States again, a month after he was released on parole halfway through his jail term.

According to a message from the victim notification network on Wednesday (Nov 8. Singapore time, Yee, 25, was admitted under the custody and control of the Illinois Department of Corrections on Tuesday.

The message said he was held at the Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum security prison in Crest Hill, Illinois.

CNA has contacted the Illinois Department of Corrections for more information, including why Yee was taken into custody.

Yee was released on parole on Oct 7 about halfway through his six-year jail term for grooming a teenage girl online and asking her for naked pictures of herself.

The Illinois Department of Corrections did not reveal the conditions of his parole, but he was registered as a s*x offender.

He was sentenced on Dec 3, 2021 after pleading guilty to charges of grooming and possessing child pornography. Sixteen other charges were dismissed as part of a plea deal that Yee agreed to. The jail term was backdated to his arrest in October 2020.

The court heard previously that Yee had befriended the victim, a 14-year-old girl, in February 2019. Yee was 20 then. The court heard he used WhatsApp to “seduce, solicit and lure” the victim, then distributed photographs of her online.

Yee was arrested by US marshals in October 2020 at his apartment in Chicago's Norwood Park East neighbourhood. He pleaded guilty to the charges after a plea deal was agreed.

In response to CNA's queries about Yee's asylum status and if he will be deported to Singapore , US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said on Oct 13 that it was unable to comment at this time "due to privacy concerns".

It has been more than six years since Yee was granted asylum by a US immigration court, despite opposition from the Department of Homeland Security.

In 2015, Yee was jailed in Singapore for wounding religious feelings by making remarks about Christians. About a year later, Yee was jailed again and fined on a similar charge, this time for making remarks about Christians and Muslims.

https://old.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/17qd6aj/singaporean_amos_yee_back_in_custody_in_the_us_a

Let me share this gem he wrote in his blog AFTER his first release. Basically he think he's the victim.

“But in summary: I believe there's enough real-life and scientific evidence showing that most sexual relationships between children and adults have been consensual and beneficial to both sides. You should definitely imprison adults who sexually force themselves onto children, but if the act isn't forceful, there's nothing wrong. You shouldn't say a relationship was an act of manipulation or r*pe just because a child was involved, you need actual evidence of force and harm for the act to be immoral. So yeah, imprisoning me for my relationship with this 14-year-old who I never manipulated, who willingly masturbated to those nude pictures and encouraged me to continue sending, and also the fact that I just spent 3 years in Prison and my supposed 14-year-old ‘victim' was literally gloating online about how she got me sent to prison, I think people should reconsider who the real ‘victim' is.

Fortunately though I'm not like most people, and frankly if I develop another close relationship with someone underage that I'm sexually attracted to, I'd break the law again, and do something sexual with that kid. I'm not just saying this, you know from my history in Singapore deliberately speaking out against the Government and getting arrested, that I consider it an honor to break unjust laws. Literally months before I was released from prison, I was interviewed and told every police and parole officer that I don't think I should have been arrested, that I defend libertarians, that I support NAMBLA, yet they still let me out of prison, which they should have because I should be innocent, but in terms of enforcing the law and ‘keeping children safe', it kind of doesn't make sense.”

>I was interviewed and told every police and parole officer that I don't think I should have been arrested, that I defend libertarians, that I support NAMBLA, yet they still let me out of prison