25-year-old Amos Yee is no stranger to jail. He received two jail sentences in Singapore in 2015 and 2016 for wounding the religious feelings of Christians and Muslims.
Following his granted asylum in the United States (US), he wound up arrested once more for possession of child porn and grooming a 14-year-old.
In a rare positive turn, the authorities released Yee early on parole halfway into his six-year sentence.
Police then arrested him again a month later over Yee breaking his parole, allegedly due to a blog post on 23 Oct.
Amos Yee’s run-ins with the law began in 2015 when a Singapore judge sentenced him to jail for wounding religious feelings.
In 2016, he received six weeks’ jail and a S$2,000 fine for similar charges. Yee fled Singapore for the US just before his National Service (NS) call-up. An immigration court granted him political asylum in 2017.
That same year, Yee attracted negative attention over defending paedophilia in his videos and blogs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, police charged him for possession of child porn in Oct 2020.
He had allegedly exchanged texts with a 14-year-old girl, including requesting and receiving her nude photos.
The court found Yee guilty of possession of child porn and grooming, sentencing him to a combined six years’ jail. Mugshots in 2022 showed him dishevelled and miserable-looking in prison.
Things appeared to look up for Yee when he was released from jail on parole last month, on either 6, 7, or 8 Oct given conflicting info. He served around three years in jail, or half his sentence.
Source: @wali_talks on X
The Straits Times reported back in 2020 that a conviction could result in the US revoking Yee’s asylum and deporting him back to Singapore.
On 23 Oct, Amos Yee returned to his favourite pasttime of blogging. In a post, he said that he was residing in a house in Illinois with two other sex offenders.
He also explained that he had a tracking device around his leg and had to obey a curfew to only exit the house from 8am to 8pm. Yee had to follow this arrangement until the end of his parole on 8 Oct 2026.
Yee did not appear to mind his public info being on the public sex offender registry. He claimed to be “used to it” from being a “celebrity” at a young age.
The three years in jail apparently failed to convince Yee to change. He defended his relationship with the 14-year-old and once more repeated his support for paedophilia.
Shockingly, he then wrote, “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.”
He followed by saying that he “[considered] it an honour to break unjust laws”.
Speaking of the future, Yee stated that he ‘planned’ to return to Singapore.
It is unclear if he actually has a choice in the matter. He later admitted that his lawyer told him that US authorities may deport him to Singapore at the end of his prison sentence.
Yee acknowledged that Singapore would likely jail him for skipping NS, but still chose to return. He reasoned that he “[contributed] the most to the world by working in Singapore”.
Source: YouTube
Yee continued by writing that he would “definitely find other ways to get arrested” in Singapore.
“It’s hard to find a time in history when great political change occurred where no one was arrested,” he claimed. He promised to write critical posts, conduct political gatherings and illegal protests in his home country.
Channel NewsAsia (CNA) reported that the Illinois Department of Corrections took Yee back into custody on 8 Nov, one month after his release.
A message on the victim notification network reportedly informed that he was being held in Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum security prison.
He allegedly broke his parole, but there is currently no confirmation on what actions caused it.
However, the US Courts website states that sex offenders on parole “must not access the Internet”, which Yee likely did to post on his blog.
Furthermore, Yee explicitly writing about his desire to re-offend in the blog post probably did not help his case.
It’s unclear what Yee’s future will be. However, it certainly is disturbing and disappointing that his jail time failed to make him turn over a new leaf.
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Featured image adapted from the Illinois Department of Corrections.
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