Doc in HIV data-leak case loses appeal against drug conviction
15-month jail term upheld; sentence to start after he serves current 2-year term
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Ler Teck Siang was sentenced to jail last October after injecting a drug abuser with an illicit drug for a fee and having a drug-stained syringe in his possession. He is currently serving a two-year jail term for helping his HIV-positive former partner cheat the authorities into issuing a work pass.
ST FILE PHOTO
Selina Lum Law Correspondent , Selina Lum
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Ler Teck Siang, the doctor involved in the HIV registry data leak that grabbed the headlines last year, lost his appeal yesterday in the High Court against his conviction for drug-related offences.
The 39-year-old Singaporean was sentenced to 15 months' jail last October on two charges - one for injecting a drug abuser with methamphetamine for a fee and the other for possessing a drug-stained syringe.
Ler was arrested with the drug abuser, Sim Eng Chee, at the Conrad Centennial Singapore hotel on March 2, 2018, after the hotel's staff found drugs in Sim's room and called the police.
Sim testified during Ler's trial that he had hired the doctor for "slamming" services ahead of group sex sessions with other men.
Slamming is a term used to describe the injection of illicit drugs.
Ler, who denied the charges, claimed that he met Sim to change the man's wound dressing and provided only "massage services" to Sim. He said "slamming" referred to an intimate massage.
As for the syringe, Ler claimed that it was from the study room of his American former partner, Mikhy Farrera-Brochez.
After a nine-day trial, a district judge found Sim's testimony more believable and consistent with the messages that had been exchanged between Ler and Sim.
Yesterday, in dismissing Ler's appeal, Judge of Appeal Tay Yong Kwang said he came to the same conclusion as the trial judge.
The sentence for the drug offences was ordered to run after Ler finishes serving his two-year jail term for helping HIV-positive Farrera-Brochez cheat the authorities into issuing a work pass.
Ler and Farrera-Brochez are the duo responsible for leaking on the Internet confidential information of 14,200 people diagnosed with HIV.
Farrera-Brochez, who worked here as a polytechnic lecturer on fake qualifications, was convicted and jailed by a United States court last September for extorting the Singapore Government with the stolen data.
Ler faces two more pending charges, one for failing to provide a urine sample and one under the Official Secrets Act for failing to take reasonable care of data in the HIV registry, which he had access to when he was head of the National Public Health Unit.
