SINGAPORE: A maid was sentenced to eight weeks’ jail on Tuesday (Nov 21) for repeatedly stealing from her employer and even making videos online to show off the items she had stolen.
The maid, 35-year-old Indonesian national Yuni Lestary, faced three theft charges. She pleaded guilty to two out of three of them, and the remaining charge was taken into consideration during sentencing. The maid was employed in 2019 and had been tasked to take care of her employer’s children and perform household chores such as cleaning and changing the bedsheets. During her employment, she had been caught stealing multiple times by her 43-year-old female employer. When confronted about the thefts, the helper reportedly apologised and implored her employer to let her off the hook. Her employer obliged and allowed her to continue working.
In November 2021, the maid entered her employer’s bedroom and stole a diamond necklace worth S$2000 and a Cartier bracelet. The helper then uploaded a video of herself wearing a necklace on TikTok on the 12th of the same month. The maid admitted that she committed the crimes when she was alone in the house and stole things because she wanted to “show off” on her TikTok videos. The prosecution pointed out that the maid abused her employer’s trust and continued to steal even after being caught several times. In addition, the items stolen by the maid were not recovered.
Read related: Maid steals employer’s diamond jewellery, gold, and Rolex watch worth over S$57K
Earlier this year, a domestic helper who stole jewellery and a Rolex watch costing tens of thousands of dollars received a 15-month jail sentence on Tuesday (Nov 21) after pleading guilty to one count of theft as a servant. It took 39-year-old Indonesian national Sri Hastuti over a year to carry out the thefts.
After stealing the diamond and gold jewellery and watch, Sri Hastuti pawned the items and sent the money she received from them to her family back home. Thirty-one pawn shop tickets were found among her possessions when her thievery came to light. The total amount of items she stole was worth over S$57,000. The prosecutor had asked for a jail sentence of between 15 and 20 months, given the high value of the items she had stolen and that her offences took place over a year. According to Section 381 of Singapore’s Penal Code, a servant committing theft of any property belonging to his or her employer may be imprisoned for up to seven years and be subject to a fine. /TISG