SINGAPORE, Aug 5 — YouTube personality and former radio deejay Dee Kosh was jailed for 32 weeks on Friday (Aug 5) for sex-related offences, including offering money to underage males in exchange for sex acts.
The 33-year-old Singaporean, whose real name is Darryl Ian Koshy, had admitted last week to one charge each of communicating with a minor under 18 to obtain sexual services, attempting to sexually exploit a minor under 18, and making an obscene video.
Four other similar charges, including possessing obscene videos, were taken into consideration during his sentencing by District Judge Jasvender Kaur.
The prosecution had sought five to eight months’ jail for Koshy, arguing on Wednesday that the YouTuber showed no remorse for his act.
Koshy had uploaded a 10-minute YouTube video on Jan 26, while his case was ongoing. The prosecution argued that the video sought “to sway public sentiments in his favour”, which could amount to “sub-judice conduct”, referring to conduct that could prejudice proceedings before the court.
On Friday, the judge allowed a transcript of that video to be admitted for consideration during sentencing.
The court previously heard that Koshy’s victims ranged from 15 to 23 years old at the time of his respective offences from 2017 to 2020. They cannot be named due to court orders to protect their identities.
Koshy used his verified accounts on these channels to convince them of his identity. After briefly chatting and ascertaining their ages, he proposed moving their conversations to messaging application Telegram and invited them to a secret chat.
This function allowed Koshy to set a self-destruct timer, which led to their messages being automatically deleted after 30 seconds.
Koshy also asked them for sexual services in exchange for sums of up to S$2,000 (RM6,500).
None of the minors agreed to his advances, but he ended up secretly filming a man who had accepted the arrangement.
Anyone convicted of trying to sexually exploit a young person below 16 years old can be jailed for up to five years or fined up to S$10,000, or both.
If found guilty of communicating for the purpose of obtaining for consideration sexual services of a minor under 18 years old, he could be jailed for up to two years or fined, or both.
For making an obscene film, he could be jailed for up to two years or fined between S$20,000 and S$40,000, or both. — TODAY
