As some readers may or may not be aware, Charles Yeo, the former Chairman of the Reform Party, is in a heap of legal troubles, for a multitude of reasons.
But even if you are not properly caught up, you can let the Goody Feed mascot cat summarise his entire ordeal for you:
The Troubles that Plague Charles Yeo
On 11 January 2021, Charles Yeo reportedly made “an abusive communication” towards a public servant, Deputy Superintendent of Police Jonathan Auyong.
The post was extremely explicit, referring to the police officer by name and calling him “nothing but a pathetic coward and collaborator with an authoritarian regime”, and even wished a gruesome death upon Auyong, where he “should be tortured before execution”.
For this, he was given two charges for the threatening and insulting words that he exchanged with the aforementioned officer.
Secondly, between Nov 2020 and Feb 2021, Yeo’s stories on his Instagram @toxicnarrativesinsg and Facebook, were allegedly made to wound the religious feelings of Christians who saw homosexuality as a subversion of their religious beliefs.
In his post, he even went as far as calling such Christians “radical and dogmatic”, and “fake Christians who use religion for personal gain.”
If you thought that was the end of his rant, well, you thought wrong.
Because later in February 2021, Yeo pointed towards certain Christian churches and called them out for being “homophobes with their trash agenda” who are “homophobic and distort the message of Christ”.
Safe to say, those being criticised didn’t take his insults lying down, because Yeo was subsequently charged with three counts of making or attempting to make remarks to wound the religious feelings of the Christian community based on the Protection from Harassment Act (POHA).
Last but not the least, are his Criminal Breach of Trust (CBT) and forgery charges under his old law firm.
For the final count, Yeo insists that it’s just an attempt by the People’s Action Party (PAP) to “fix him up” and put him in jail because he’s a vocal and fervent critic of the government.
The Extent of Yeo’s Troubles
To put things in the worst-case scenario—which Charles Yeo has done himself—he doesn’t really expect the court to rule in his favour so he’s preparing himself for the legal Armageddon and the grey bars of the prison cell.
If he’s convicted of making abusive remarks towards a public servant, Yeo could be fined up to $5,000 and face an imprisonment sentence of a year, and he has two counts to answer for.
For violating the Protection from Harassment Act (POHA), he could face a fine of up to $5,000, a jail term of 6 months, or both.
And since Yeo is being charged for Aggravated Criminal Breach of Trust under Section 409 of the Penal Code, which is the most severe type of CBT accusation, he could face a maximum of 20 years in prison and/or a fine that is determined by the court.
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It doesn’t take a genius to know that he’s in really deep trouble.
Raising Legal Fees
Ever since Charles Yeo was formally arrested in January, he went onto Facebook to start a crowdfunding campaign to pay for his legal fees.
He was transparent about the numbers and where the money would be going to:
Yeo stated that he has raised around S$16,000 thus far, but admits that it’s just a drop in the ocean for the financial quagmire he has found himself in.
Overall, the former Chairman of the Reform Party hopes to raise around S$70,000 to S$100,000, which will be used to pay the following:
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- The legal costs for the POHA and wounding religious feelings cases which will cost around S$25,000
- Paying for the fines that will be imposed for the POHA religious case which will amount to S$10,000
- Fines imposed by the Singapore Law Society and the cost of disciplinary proceedings which will cost about S$15,000
- Costs of Singapore Law Society proceedings regarding the alleged CBT and forgery charges. Since there are three outstanding charges and the maximum fine for each count is $15,000, it would tally up to S$45,000
It should be mentioned that the legal costs include paying the lawyers that are representing him in the cases.
For the charge of wounding religious feelings, Lawyers Ashwin Ganapathy and Azri Imran Tan of IRB Law are his legal representatives, and they stated that Yeo wants to dispute those charges. If that case drags out in court, it will inevitably increase the cost of the legal fees.
Using NFTs to Raise His Legal Fees
According to Yeo, the suggestion to use Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) to raise his legal fees was given by netizens.
Besides being a vocal critic of the PAP, the other thing that Charles Yeo is best known for is his terrible Mandarin speech that he made during the 2020 General Elections to gather support for the Reform Party..
In a span of a day, Yeo basically became a meme in Singapore, a fact that he has taken into his stride and even made merchandise out of, simply because he acknowledges that his Mandarin proficiency does leave much to be desired, and any type of publicity is still publicity.
In the wise words of Tyrion Lannister, “Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armour, and it can never be used to hurt you.”
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In the same vein, his NFT collection on Opensea is essentially a collection of his memes, whilst representing everything he stands for.
His Non-Fungible Tokens are called CharlesDAO, with the “DAO” meaning Defence Against Oppression.
Brash with words he might be, but you have to admit that he has a good naming sense at least.
Examples of his NFTs
Of course, in classic Charles Yeo fashion, the misspoken line “成何体统” which was supposed to be “成何体面” (translation: what has [our country] become) that skyrocketed him to local fame cannot be absent.
Quintessentially, his NFTs are very simple in style, with his face satirically enlarged with captions like “Y U NO VOTE RP?!?!” or “come with me if you want to 捡 (pick up) cardboard”.
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I can’t be certain if the latter is a jab at the fact that he’s currently in financial straits, but if it was indeed deliberate, then I can only salute him for being able to make that joke at this point in time.
Besides that, there are a few that purposefully poke fun at the PAP and their policies, with “I’m a puppy face but you’re a pappie dog” being the most obvious of the bunch.
He did not hesitate to call out PAP supporters for being obedient bootlickers at all.
The CharlesDAO collection on Opensea comprises 660 items in total. If you’re interested in checking them out or supporting him, you can view them here.
Each NFT is selling at a floor price of 0.02 ETH (S$70), and they will be available for sale until 20 March.
Get them while stocks last?
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Featured Image: Facebook (Charles Yeo) & Opensea
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