DJ Tenashar gets 18 months' jail on 9 charges, including drug-related ones

Celebrity DJ Tenashar had reoffended during a remission period and repeatedly failed to report for a urine test for drug use. PHOTO: ST FILE

SINGAPORE - Celebrity DJ Tenashar was sentenced on Monday (April 5) to 18 months' jail after she was convicted of nine charges, including several drug-related ones.

Ten other charges, including for theft and harassment, were considered during sentencing.

This was not her first brush with the law.

In 2019, the former FHM Singapore and Playboy Thailand cover girl, whose full name is Debbie Valerie Tenashar Long, was sentenced to 18 months' jail for offences, including drug consumption.

Now 35, Long received early release from prison in 2019. She was subjected to a remission order under which she was supposed to stay out of trouble from May 29 to Nov 25, 2019.

But she reoffended during that period and repeatedly failed to report for a urine test for drug use.

She has to spend an additional 72 days behind bars now for breaching the order.

After a five-day trial, District Judge Eddy Tham found Long guilty on nine charges, including six counts of failing to report for a urine drug test at the Jurong Police Divisional Headquarters in July and September 2019.

The court heard that on July 4 that year, she unlawfully left Singapore without a supervision officer's approval.

During the trial last month, investigation officer Senior Staff Sergeant Lim Wan Xin from the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB), told the court that Long returned to Singapore through the Woodlands Checkpoint three days later.

In their submissions, Deputy Public Prosecutors Vadivalagan Shanmuga and Pearly Ang said that Long had left Singapore for Johor Baru despite repeated reminders that she had to seek approval from CNB before leaving the country.

The DPPs added that her charges "form part of a sequence of actions which manifests (her) deliberate and recalcitrant intention to defy and resist Singapore's drug-supervision regime".

In her defence, Long, who was unrepresented in court, stated that she had been given permission to leave Singapore for Malaysia on July 4, 2019.

Describing her version of events as being "wholly untenable", the DPPs said: "The CNB officers who have taken the stand have given clear and consistent evidence to refute this.

"The accused did not provide the necessary documentation for the application to travel, and this was made known plainly to the accused in written e-mail correspondence."

Separately, on two occasions on July 16, 2019, Long recorded a video in CNB's office at the Jurong Police Divisional Headquarters - a protected place.

She did so for the first time at 6.36pm in a corridor of the second-floor office. She committed the same offence two minutes later.

Reports had earlier described Long as the first Singaporean to be featured on the cover of Playboy Thailand magazine in October 2013.

That same month, she also became the first Singaporean to make British music magazine DJ Mag's list of top 100 DJs, snagging the No. 87 spot.

She was the only solo female DJ to make the list that year.

For each count of failing to report for a urine test, an offender can be jailed for up to four years and fined up to $10,000.

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