Amos Yee to remain in US prison until November, faces lifetime monitoring for parole breach
UNITED STATES: Amos Yee, a former Singaporean YouTuber convicted of sex offences in the United States, will remain behind bars until 7 November 2025 after breaching parole conditions.
The Illinois Department of Corrections listed the 26-year-old's new projected parole date as two years after his re-arrest in November 2023.
His projected discharge date now ranges from three years to life, meaning he may remain under US authorities' supervision indefinitely.
Originally, Yee was expected to be released on 24 April 2025.
However, due to a ruling by the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, he was deemed to have violated parole conditions and is no longer eligible for mandatory supervised release until November.
A spokesperson from the Illinois Department of Corrections confirmed the parole breach but did not provide further details, as reported by Singapore state media The Straits Times.
Yee is currently held at Danville Correctional Centre, a medium-security male prison located approximately two hours and forty minutes from Chicago.
He was initially released on parole on 7 October 2023, three years before the end of his original six-year sentence.
Amos Yee sentenced in 2021 following his guilty plea to charges of grooming and possessing child pornography
His early release followed a guilty plea in December 2021 to charges of grooming a minor and possessing child pornography.
Sixteen additional charges were dropped as part of the plea agreement. The court retroactively applied his sentence to his October 2020 arrest.
US marshals arrested Yee at his residence in Chicago's Norwood Park East in 2020 after it was discovered that he had engaged in a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl via WhatsApp.
Despite the victim repeatedly stating her age, Yee persisted in soliciting nude photos and reciprocated with explicit images. He also distributed the images online.
The crimes occurred between February and July 2019, and Yee's communications with the girl spanned thousands of messages.
Yee fled to the US in December 2016, the day before he was scheduled to report for his national service medical examination in Singapore.
He was granted political asylum in March 2017 by a Chicago immigration judge, who ruled he had been persecuted in Singapore for his political views.
The US Department of Homeland Security's appeal against the ruling was dismissed in September 2017.
Prior to his relocation, Yee was jailed twice in Singapore.
In 2015, at age 16, he was arrested after posting a video criticising the late Lee Kuan Yew shortly after the former prime minister's death.
The video and an obscene image led to his conviction for wounding religious feelings and obscenity.
He was released in May 2015, having served more time in custody than the sentence required.
In 2017, Yee was jailed again after pleading guilty to six charges of wounding religious feelings of Christians and Muslims in his blog and video posts.
His re-incarceration in the US is believed to be linked to new online activity while on parole, which violated conditions barring internet use by sex offenders.
According to the US Courts' guidelines, individuals on sex offender parole are prohibited from internet access. Yee allegedly breached this by posting on his blog.
In a controversial post titled 'Amos Yee's Update after 3 Years in American Prison', Yee denied manipulating his victim and expressed continued support for paedophilia.
He wrote that if he again formed a relationship with a minor he was attracted to, he would 'break the law again'.
Yee also discussed returning to Singapore, acknowledging the possibility of losing his asylum status, facing charges for evading national service, and risking further prosecution for criticising the government.
Despite these threats, he said he remained committed to political activism and believed he could still contribute to society.
In another blog entry dated 5 November 2023, Yee outlined provocative goals, including creating a popular platform to defend paedophilia and promoting illegal protests in Singapore.
These posts, deemed a breach of parole conditions, likely prompted US authorities to revoke his early release.
Yee remains listed on the US sex offender registry, with his offence details and residential information publicly accessible.
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