SINGAPORE: Singaporean blogger Amos Yee, who is currently serving time in the United States on sex-related charges, was due for parole on Friday (Nov 7) but has been remanded in custody.
According to inmate status records from the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDC), the 27-year-old was granted parole on Friday. However, updated records on Saturday (Nov 8) indicated that Yee was re-admitted into custody on the same day and is now being held at Danville Jail.
The U.S. Department of Justice requires detainees to meet specific release conditions before they can be granted parole. Yee’s parole date had previously been postponed to Nov 7 this year after he violated the terms of his earlier parole.
While he has now been detained again, the IDC system did not provide details on the reason for his re-detention. The latest assessment lists his expected release term as “three years to life imprisonment, to be determined.”
Newly released prison photos show Yee with shoulder-length hair.
Yee first drew public attention in Singapore in 2015 when he was sentenced to four weeks in jail for posting videos that defamed Christianity and insulted Singapore’s founding Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew.
In 2016, he was sentenced to six weeks in prison and fined S$2,000 for intentionally wounding the religious feelings of Muslims and Christians, as well as for failing to comply with police orders.
Yee sought and was granted political asylum in the United States in 2017. However, he was later arrested in 2020 for possessing child pornography and for sexually exploiting a 14-year-old girl from Texas.
He was accused of exchanging nude photos and thousands of text messages with the minor. A U.S. court sentenced him to six years in prison for these offences.
