A man facing charges including 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.\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 $1,000 if he allowed them to access his bank accounts. 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. \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 amoun