SINGAPORE: Two men were dealt with in a district
court on Friday for molesting girls in separate
incidents.
The first offender is 32-year-old Colombian, Jorge
Luis Lujan Garcia. He was fined S$10,000 for outraging the modesty
of an 11-year-old primary school student.
He could have been jailed up to two years, and fined
or caned for the offence.
The stocky South American, who works as an initiative manager in
Singapore, had entered a lift with the girl at a condominium in the
eastern part of Singapore at around 4pm on April 17, last
year.
He then used his right hand to touch her buttocks for about two
seconds.
Garcia pleaded guilty to the offence on Friday.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Fu Qijing told the court that the student
kept quiet throughout her ordeal as she did not know how to respond
to the situation.
She later told her mother about it when she reached home and the
police were notified.
Defence counsel Gary Leonard Low said Garcia was remorseful and
urged the judge to impose a stiff fine on his client instead of
sending him to jail.
Mr Low also said that Garcia did not touch the girl's private
parts.
However, DPP Fu stressed that the girl was a minor and she could
not escape from Garcia as the offence took place within the
confines of a lift.
In the other incident, a 50-year-old recalcitrant molester was
sentenced to three years' jail for outraging the modesty of three
teenage girls.
Toh Boon Cheong, who had earlier been convicted of six other molest
charges between 1994 and 2003, committed his latest string of
offences between September and October, last year.
He originally faced five molest charges but two of them were taken
into consideration.
In one of the cases, the storeman molested a 13-year-old student on
a south-bound train travelling from Choa Chu Kang to Yew Tee MRT
station.
The other two teenagers were molested at Choa Chu Kang Loop.
- CNA/fa
