SINGAPORE, July 15 — A former senior bank executive, already serving five-and-a-half years behind bars for promoting overseas commercial sex tours involving minors, was sentenced to another 12 weeks’ jail today  for possessing 245 obscene films.

Ten of the videos that Michael Frank Hartung, a Singapore permanent resident from Germany, was found in possession of involved child pornography.

A video titled "Michelle 4yo” showed a four-year-old girl performing an obscene act on an adult man.

Hartung, now 49, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to two counts of possessing obscene films under the Films Act, with another two similar charges taken into consideration for sentencing.

Last year, he was convicted of two charges of promoting overseas sex tours and is currently serving his jail time pending an appeal in the High Court against his conviction and sentence.

His lawyer,  Si Hoe Tat Chorng, said it will be heard in September.

Senior District Judge Bala Reddy ordered Hartung to serve his latest sentence after completing his current term.

Hartung, who is married with a young daughter, was arrested in 2016 following two undercover operations set up by the police who had received information that he was involved in deviant sexual activities.

Four undercover officers, whose real names cannot be revealed, then posed as potential clients under the aliases of Michael, Paul, Jackson and Frank.

Hartung told them that he would provide them with young "virgin girls” and discussed plans to engage in child sex in the Philippines.

After the second undercover operation, Hartung did not contact them again to finalise plans for the trip.

After his arrest

When he was nabbed on Aug 30, 2016, the police searched his Simei Green condominium and seized multiple items.

These included mobile phones, SIM cards, thumbdrives and a bag containing 235 digital video compact discs (DVDs).

Of these DVDs, 225 of them contained obscene films lasting between an hour and five hours in length.

Seven of those videos contained child abuse material, where children below the age of 16 were filmed engaging in sexual activities with other children, as well as men and women.

The evidence revealed that some of the girls could be as young as five years old and that the majority of the films featured prepubescent children.

The police also found another 20 obscene films in his mobile phones, tablets and laptop. Three of them contained child abuse material, with some of the girls involved possibly as young as four years old.

Hartung wanted to come clean: lawyer

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Andre Ong sought at least 15 weeks’ jail, noting the "deeply depraved nature of the acts” performed on the young victims.

The prosecutor said: "The court must send out an unstinting message to all like-minded offenders or people who currently have child pornography in their possession that such videos are clearly deplorable and offenders who continue to keep child pornography will be severely dealt with.

"The hope is that a deterrent sentence will curb demand such that the supply of the same is staunched at its roots.”

The DPP also referenced the case of Joshua Robinson, which had sparked public outrage in 2017.

The American mixed martial arts instructor was sentenced to four years’ jail that year for various offences, ranging from sexual penetration of two 15-year-olds to showing an obscene film to a six-year-old girl.

The police had found 6,225 obscene films in Robinson’s apartment, of which 321 featured child pornography.

In comparison, DPP Ong said that Hartung’s stash "goes nowhere near” Robinson’s and that Hartung’s culpability was thus lower.

In mitigation, Hartung’s lawyer,  Hoe, said that the police discovered the DVDs only because Hartung voluntarily surrendered them.

"The investigators appeared to be primarily interested in IT equipment such as computers and mobile phones and such. But it came to a point where the accused wished to come clean,” the lawyer added.

The DVDs had also been in a "completely dusty, disused and deteriorating state”, left at the bottom of a storeroom. The police said that most of them were unreadable.

 Hoe said that Hartung had bought them in Germany and taken them to Singapore when he emigrated in 2006.

In sentencing Hartung, the judge said that the jail time should "reflect the quantity of obscene films and a sizable number of them containing highly exploitative sexual content of young children”.

For possessing obscene films, he could have been fined up to S$500 for each film, jailed up to six months, or both. — TODAY