SINGAPORE: Singaporean Amos Yee has been taken into custody in the United States again, a month after he was released on parole halfway through his jail term.
According to a message from the victim notification network on Wednesday (Nov 8) Singapore time, Yee, 25, was admitted under the custody and control of the Illinois Department of Corrections on Tuesday.
The message said he was held at the Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum security prison in Crest Hill, Illinois.
CNA has contacted the Illinois Department of Corrections for more information, including why Yee was taken into custody.
Yee was released on parole on Oct 7 about halfway through his six-year jail term for grooming a teenage girl online and asking her for naked pictures of herself.
The Illinois Department of Corrections did not reveal the conditions of his parole, but he was registered as a sex offender.
He was sentenced on Dec 3, 2021 after pleading guilty to charges of grooming and possessing child pornography. Sixteen other charges were dismissed as part of a plea deal that Yee agreed to. The jail term was backdated to his arrest in October 2020.
The court heard previously that Yee had befriended the victim, a 14-year-old girl, in February 2019. Yee was 20 then.
They began an “online courtship”, during which he repeatedly asked for her naked photos.
On occasions, he asked her to engage in roleplay and “sexual fantasies”, said the prosecution. This was despite the victim telling him that she was 14 years old. This went on until July 2019.
The court heard he used WhatsApp to “seduce, solicit and lure” the victim, then distributed photographs of her online.
Yee was arrested by US marshals in October 2020 at his apartment in Chicago’s Norwood Park East neighbourhood.
He pleaded guilty to the charges after a plea deal was agreed.
Related:
Singaporean Amos Yee jailed in the US for grooming 14-year-old girl, possessing child porn
Singaporean Amos Yee released from US prison on parole after serving time for sex-related offences
In response to CNA’s queries about Yee’s asylum status and if he will be deported to Singapore, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said on Oct 13 that it was unable to comment at this time “due to privacy concerns”.
It has been more than six years since Yee was granted asylum by a US immigration court, despite opposition from the Department of Homeland Security.
In 2015, Yee was jailed in Singapore for wounding religious feelings by making remarks about Christians. About a year later, Yee was jailed again and fined on a similar charge, this time for making remarks about Christians and Muslims.