Chicago — “We almost forgot amos yee liao” – That was the sentiment of hardwarezone forum user ‘notbui’ at 1.07 am on Friday (June 4).
Yes, notbui, we almost did.
To recap, since we last heard of this delinquent and child-pornography enthusiast, there has been an “additional discovery” in the case of this 22-year-old Singaporean who has been remanded in the US.
On May 8, Yee appeared before a Chicago court via Zoom for a short hearing. During the hearing, Yee’s public defender — a lawyer employed by the state in a criminal trial to represent a defendant who is unable to afford legal assistance — said he needed to visit Yee in remand to go over some matters with him.
“We did get an additional discovery that I was able to review and I need to go over that with Mr Yee. But I do believe we will likely have a disposition to this matter,” said lawyer Ali Ammoura, without specifying what the discovery was.
Yee was set to come before the court again on June 2. However, days later, there still seems to be no word on this man-child.
Last November, this former YouTuber and blogger pleaded not guilty in a Chicago court to all charges related to his arrest for child pornography.
He was arrested on Oct 14 and indicted formally by a grand jury on Nov 4.
The accused was alleged to have exchanged nude photos and “thousands” of messages in 2019 with a Texas girl who was then 14 years old while he was living in Chicago, according to a report by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Prosecutors say they obtained messages Yee exchanged between April and July 2019 that included nude photos he requested and received from the girl and nude photos of himself that he sent to the minor.
Prosecutors said the girl repeatedly brought up her age in the messages, but Yee instructed her to remove her age from her profile on WhatsApp.
When their relationship eventually soured, she reached out to a group interested in exposing paedophiles.
This is not Yee’s first run-in with the law.
In 2015, Yee was jailed in Singapore for hate speech against Christians as well as for publishing an obscene image. The next year, Yee was jailed again and fined, this time for hate speech against Christians and Muslims.
He was granted asylum in the US in 2017 by a US immigration court despite opposition from the Department of Homeland Security.
So, after all this, why should we still remember Amos Yee?
Well, if convicted, Yee could lose his asylum status and face deportation. Meaning, he’d likely return to Singapore.
TISG has reached out to Yee’s mother, Mary Toh, for comment. /TISG