Yahoo Finance Man who blackmailed female property agent with explicit video jailed
SINGAPORE — Angry with a female property agent who appeared to have gone behind his back to negotiate a business deal, a consultant demanded that she perform oral sex on him and recorded the act.
Joshua Yip Ka Wai, 36, then used the footage to blackmail the 30-year-old victim into paying $20,000 of the upfront payment for the deal to him.
He threatened to send emails containing the video to the Council for Estate Agencies and the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, saying that the victim was obtaining property deals in exchange for sexual favours.
Yip was jailed 12 weeks on Tuesday (30 March) after he pleaded guilty to two out of three counts of criminal intimidation, with the remaining charge taken into consideration for his sentencing. One of the charges he pleaded guilty to involved him abetting an employee to criminally intimidate the woman.
The victim cannot be named to protect her identity.
Yip, who is a consultant at Joshua Yip Training & Consultancy, met the victim between 2009 and 2010 after they became acquainted through mutual friends.
On 4 September 2018, Yip told the victim that a Vietnam-based business partner wished to purchase two private residential properties in Singapore. He knew that the victim was a property agent and sought her help in facilitating the transaction.
Yip and the victim then agreed to share the profits, with the total commission from the deal expected to be more than $290,000. He expected to receive at least 60 per cent of the commission.
On 29 November 2018, the woman travelled to Ho Chi Minh City, where Yip was at, for the deal.
The next day, the woman and another property agent had dinner with the business partner, without Yip present.
When Yip learned that the woman had dinner with his business partner, he became angry, concerned that the victim was cutting him out of the agreement.
Yip then invited the woman to his apartment in Ho Chi Minh City and told her that she had handled the deal terribly. He told her he wanted her fellow property agent out of the deal.
He then told her that if she wanted to continue with the profit-sharing agreement, she had to perform oral sex on him, and the woman agreed.
While the woman was in the washroom, Yip placed his mobile phone with its lens pointed at him. He recorded the woman performing oral sex on him for 15 minutes.
On 18 December 2018, after the two returned to Singapore, they met for dinner and Yip revealed the recording. He told the victim that if she failed to make payment of $20,000 – constituting the upfront payment for the deal – by 21 December 2018, he would send emails containing the video and a message that the victim had obtained property deals in exchange for sexual favours to the CEA and CPIB.
On 24 December 2018, he told his employee in Vietnam to send a harassing message to the victim. He had provided a copy of the obscene footage to the employee while he was in Vietnam.
Under his instruction, the employee extracted three screenshots from the video of the victim performing oral sex on Yip and sent them to the woman. He also sent the message, “F**K UR B**LS**T, TML 1PM. IF NO $20,000 UR FRIENDS WILL SEE THIS 2 PICS. MOTHERSHIP.SG AND GOODFEED WILL GET WHOLE VIDEO & CONTENT. LAST F**K**G WARNING (sic)!!
For criminal intimidation, Yip could have been jailed up to two years, and/or fined
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