A 54-year-old American man was sentenced to 24 years in prison on 27 Oct 2025 for repeatedly raping his 11-year-old daughter after his lover, a Filipino maid, encouraged him to commit sexual acts on the child throughout one night in March 2023.
Shiela Marie Ibales Albao, 33, received 22 years’ jail for her role in instigating the abuse.​
The man pleaded guilty to three charges of statutory rape and one charge of perverting the course of justice, with another 12 charges taken into consideration during sentencing.
Albao pleaded guilty to three charges of abetting the man to commit the rapes, with 11 other charges taken into consideration.​
The Relationship Between the Accused
The victim’s parents had separated in 2019. She lived with her mother and maternal relatives on weekdays but stayed with her father on weekends.​
In early 2022, the man met Albao through a dating app, and they began a sexual relationship. Albao would visit his rental apartment on Sundays during her day off. The man told his daughter that Albao was his girlfriend but instructed her not to tell anyone about the relationship.​
When they were apart, the couple exchanged sexually explicit messages discussing deeply disturbing fantasies involving threesomes and engaging in bestiality.
The Night of Abuse
On 17 Mar 2023, the victim was at her father’s apartment as part of their regular weekend arrangement. That evening, the man and Albao exchanged sexualised messages about the girl.​
Albao told the man she wanted him to send her a photo of the victim performing an indecent act on him. He suggested challenging the victim to accomplish a series of acts to win a “bet”.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Wong Shiau Yin said the couple exploited the victim’s competitive streak to manipulate her.
The man showed the victim a message from Albao, who said she “bet 50” the girl could not perform the act. He recorded video clips of the act with his mobile phone and sent them to Albao. When Albao asked if the girl said anything, he replied: “She likes that she won the bet”.​
Albao then issued another challenge to the victim, who was told she would win S$100 if she carried out oral sex. The man again sent Albao the video he recorded.​
The man performed more sexual acts on the girl, including instances where she was made to carry a karaoke set above her head, and sent the video recordings to Albao. Albao sent voice messages congratulating the victim for winning S$400 and complimenting her for doing a great job.​
At one point, Albao was dissatisfied with one of the videos because the man’s face was not shown, so he redid the video to capture his face.​
The Rapes
After the girl fell asleep, Albao urged the man to continue with more acts. He proceeded to rape and sexually assault his daughter while she slept.
The sexual assaults took place between about 8.30pm on 17 Mar 2023 and about 8.50am the next day, reported The Straits Times.​
On 4 May 2023, about two months after the abuse, the victim told her form teacher about what had happened. The police were called in.​
The police devised a plan to arrest the man without tipping him off. On 5 May 2023, the man was informed that the victim and her mother were at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and that he needed to be there.​
Attempts to Destroy Evidence
Sensing something was amiss, the man sent a voice message to Albao telling her to remove her WhatsApp profile picture, which showed her performing a sex act on him, and not to send him any messages until he texted her.
He then deleted all his communications with Albao from his phone, including the photos and videos he had taken of himself sexually abusing his daughter, and told her to do the same, as it was damning evidence.​
The man was arrested at the hospital that day, while Albao was nabbed the next day.​
The Investigation
During investigations, the man was uncooperative. He refused to provide the passcode to his devices and initially denied committing any sexual acts on the victim.​
However, Albao did not manage to delete her communications with the man before her phone was seized. When the man was confronted with the videos and photos, he claimed he could not recall doing any of these acts and attributed this to undiagnosed Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, a head injury, and alcoholic blackout.​
He was remanded for a forensic psychiatric evaluation and found to have intact abilities for intellectual functioning, executive functioning, and working memory.
He was also found to maintain at least some degree of awareness and control of his actions, as well as an understanding of the wrongfulness of what he did to the victim.​
The Sentencing
Both sentences included an additional one-year term in lieu of caning, after Justice Aidan Xu agreed with the prosecution that there was a need to compensate for the lost deterrent effect of caning.
The man cannot be caned as he is above the age of 50, while Albao cannot be caned as she is a woman.
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