News

Dee Kosh’s Video That He Removed Apparently Made Things Worse for Him

2022-08-03 , 3:19 pm

Former radio deejay (DJ) and YouTuber Dee Kosh has confessed to sexual offences involving two teenage boys.

For a multitude of reasons, which Dee Kosh’s sub judice conduct in posting a YouTube video about his legal suit, the prosecution is seeking a sentence of five to eight months in jail.

The aforementioned YouTube video has been taken down.

In case you’re curious about the video’s content, you can watch the summary of it here:

The Criminal Charges

In order to protect the victims’ identities, a gag order has been issued.

Prior to the oral arguments on Wednesday (3 Aug), Darryl Ian Koshy (Dee Kosh’s real name) has admitted to soliciting paid sexual services from three victims between 2017 and 2020.

Two of the victims were underaged at that time, a fact that Dee Kosh was aware of.

Dee Kosh has also secretly filmed himself having sex with the third victim, then aged 23 to 25, without their consent.

In May, Dee Kosh pleased guilty to attempting to procure an indecent act from a young person, communicating with a minor to obtain sexual services and making an obscene film.

Four more charges will be considered for his sentencing.

The accused will be returning for his sentencing on Friday.

Prosecution: Dee Kosh is a Seasoned Criminal

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Lim Ying Ming urged the court to impose a longer jail term, arguing that Dee Kosh had intentionally sought out minors to proposition them, despite being fully aware of their age.

She goes on to describe Dee Kosh’s conduct as “highly premeditated and persistent”, further elaborating that he took advantage of his celebrity status and used his money to lure in victims.

DPP Lim also pointed out the pains in which Dee Kosh took to conceal his wrongdoings.

In response, the defence counsel argued that Kosh shifted his conversations with the underaged victims to Telegram’s “secret chat” and Snapchat because he wished to be discreet about his sexuality.

The prosecutor refuted immediately, calling the explanation “an afterthought designed to mislead”.

DPP Lim substantiated this by saying that Kosh clearly had “no qualms” about flirting with boys he met on social media, and that scarcely counts as discreet behaviour.

On the point of whether Dee Kosh’s public admission was fuelled by remorse, DPP Lim disagreed, and considered the posting of the video as sub judice conduct.

The video she was referring to is the nine-minute-long video that Dee Kosh posted on YouTube, which was uploaded one day after he indicated that he would plead guilty.

“Sub judice” translates to “under judgement” in Latin, and is a form of contempt of court that affects statements or publications made about a court case while the proceedings are still ongoing.

The reason why sub judice conduct is seen as an offence is because its sole purpose is to prevent trial by media and public opinion, which may affect or be perceived to affect the court proceedings, especially if it’s a jury where a group of people have been empowered to make findings of fact or render a verdict for a trial.

(Of course, jurors are not allowed to go on social media or read the news while the trial is ongoing, but accidents happen.)

After reading out extracts from a transcript of the video, DPP Lim asserted that Dee Kosh used his platform to mislead the public in a bid to lighten his offences to a case of mistaken assumption of the victims’ age, which is false because he knew his victims were underage.

She also brought the court’s attention to the letter that Dee Kosh’s lawyer issued to an allegedly victim who purportedly accused him of sexual misconduct on August 2020, whereby the victim was told to cease and desist from publishing his claims on any platform.

DPP Lim concluded that Dee Koh was a “seasoned criminal skilled at avoiding detection”. While he is a first-time offender in the eyes of the law, she argues that it does little to mitigate the weight of his crimes, as his sexual propositioning of minors happened over the course of three years.

Defence: Dee Kosh is Remorseful

On the other hand, defence counsel Johannes Hadi stated that his client made the video to address the news report and to clarify “false rumours” about his case.

He also referred to the video, reading out extracts from the video transcript to evince his remorse, such as the part where Dee Kosh admitted that he had made “terrible mistakes”.

Afterwards, Mr Hadi brought up the psychiatric examination that Dee Kosh had to undergo to assess whether he had a paedophilic disorder, and to evaluate his risk of reoffending.

Mr Hadi informed the court that Dee Kosh was not suffering from the former and his risk of re-offending was deemed low.

He added that the reasons for this finding were that Dee Kosh felt contrite and he did not suffer from any substance abuse or psychiatric disorder.

He also mentioned that his client was relatively young—if 33 years old is relative to you, sure—and he had a good chance of rehabilitation.

At the end, District Judge Jasvender Kaur stated that she would deliver her sentence after considering the submissions from both sides.

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Propositioned Two Teenage Boys

During the time of his offences, Dee Kosh had already risen to fame on YouTube and was a presenter on radio station Power 98.

The court was previously told that in March 2018, Dee Kosh used his verified Instagram account to message his first underaged victim, identified as A1 in the court documents.

A1 informed Dee Kosh he was under 16.

Even then, Kosh suggested moving their conversation to Telegram’s “secret chat”, where there was an option to delete the message history automatically and prevent it from being forwarded to us.

Dee Kosh would also be informed if a screenshot was taken.

The YouTuber proceeded to offer A1 S$100 to S$250 in exchange for sexual services.

A1 was shocked at first, thinking that Dee Kosh was just cracking a joke, but his persistence made him realise otherwise.

Upon receiving another offer of money for sex, A1 started to lessen the frequency in which he talked to Dee Kosh.

These conversations spanned over four months until June 2018. Out of the fear he was offending Dee Kosh, A1 did not stop communicating with him immediately.

Dee Kosh saw the second victim, A2, outside Takashimaya on Orchard Road during a video shoot in February 2017.

He went up to A2 and they became friends through social media. They talked over WhatsApp, wherein A2 told Dee Kosh he was under 18.

Dee Kosh expressed that A2 could work for him, even offering to teach the boy about production work, how to take good photographs and boost his own confidence.

Afterwards, Dee Kosh suggested a “question game”, and began asking the victim questions of a sexual nature.

This eventually led to Dee Kosh telling A2 that he was thinking of an “indecent proposal” and suggested moving the conversation to Snapchat, where the messages and images sent would only be available for a short period of time.

Dee Kosh then asked A2 for a shirtless picture so he could “blackmail” the boy if he talked. A2 didn’t send a photo—smart man—but promised Dee Kosh that he wouldn’t reveal anything.

Dee Kosh inquired what it would take for him to allow someone to perform a sexual act on him. He tacked on that A2 would be blindfolded and wouldn’t be aware of the person’s gender.

Later on, Dee Kosh divulged that the person performing the sexual act would be himself and offered the victim S$400. A2 declined repeatedly, but Dee Kosh continued to raise the price until it reached S$2,000.

Their conversation was recorded by A2’s roommate using another phone.

The Third Victim

As early as 2016, Dee Kosh started to follow the third victim, who is identified as A3 in the court documents.

They began chatting and escalated to Dee Kosh inviting A3 to his home.

A3 agreed, thinking it might lead to a recruitment opportunity at the influencer’s production company.

Upon arriving at Dee Kosh’s home, they talked for a while before moving to the bed room, where Dee Kosh performed a sexual act on A3.

From 2016 to 2020, A3 would continue to go to Dee Kosh’s house to hang out and engage in paid and unpaid sexual acts.

On one of these occasions between 2016 and 2017, Dee Kosh installed a hidden camera to film them having sex, without asking for the victim’s consent.

The three victims didn’t report the offences to the police immediately, believing that they were the only victim and they were afraid of confronting a social media influencer with a large following.

It was only in August 2020 where allegations of Dee Kosh’s sexual misdemeanours surfaced when a man posted on Instagram that he was sexually harassed by the YouTuber.

You know the trend; it only takes one person to break the dam before the rest comes pouring out.

More and more victims came forward on social media, but Dee Kosh initially denied those claims.

However, he would later address them again on social media, admitting that there was some truth to the allegation.

Upon realising that they weren’t the only ones who were preyed on by Dee Kosh, A1 lodged a police report on 16 August 2016. Dee Kosh was arrested on 5 October 2020.

Under the Children and Young Persons Act, he could be jailed up to five years, be liable to a fine of up to S$10,000, or both for attempted sexual exploitation of a young person.

For communicating with the purpose of obtaining sexual services of a minor, he could be sentence to two years in jail and fined.

The punishment for making an obscene film is a maximum jail term of two year and a fine between S$20,000 and S$40,000.

You can also watch this video for a summary of what he’s done: