71-year-old Gan Thian Soo received three charges of assault, harassment and causing public nuisance for hitting and verbally abusing a 25-year-old American expatriate on a public train last April.
The case became viral last year after the victim, Joe DeMarini, uploaded a video online on 19 April which showed the 70-year-old man assaulting him and asking him for sex.
The old man had initially boarded the train at Chinatown MRT station with a friend and they sat in the middle of a carriage. Later, DeMarini noticed that the man was sitting on a priority seat and trying to talk to a woman seated next to him. After the woman moved away, the man walked towards the American and stood in front of him.
His first words to DeMarini were, “I like you”. Demarini had said in his earlier post that the 70-year-old approached him when he was with a friend and that he appeared drunk. According to DeMarini, the old man allegedly said: “he was gay, and that he wanted to fuck me. He said, “I know you’re gay, so let’s fuck.””
https://www.facebook.com/theamnesiac/videos/3992631782453/
De Marini lodged a complaint with the Police about the incident on 21 April at 3.59pm. The Police said that they later established the man’s identity and arrested him along Ang Mo Kio Ave 1 on the same day at about 10pm.
The 71-year-old man who was first identified as Mr Gan by the Chinese daily said that he is blind in one eye and can only see through his left. He said that he don’t remember the argument was what he said, but he has since seen the video.
“That day I thought I saw him (DeMarini) make some strange gay-like gestures at me and it made me feel uncomfortable,” he said.
Gan said he only wanted to tell DeMarini to stop what he was doing, but he suffered an anxiety attack when he confronted him. The anxiety and drunkenness caused him to act in the manner that he did, said the old man.
Gan said that he did not want to have sex with the American on the train. He has been seeing a psychiatrist for depression for about 2 years and is on medication. But 2 weeks before the incident in the train, his condition took a turn for the worse due to family problems.
“I’m already 70 over years old, and don’t have the energy to quarrel with young people?” he added.
In court yesterday, the judge allowed Gan to be remanded at the Institute of Mental Health for two weeks for a psychiatric evaluation, as per the prosecution’s request. Gan will return to court on 1 Dec.