Doctor in HIV data leak case loses appeal against conviction for injecting man with drug for cash

• Ler Teck Siang had argued that he used the drug utensils to make arts and crafts
• He had met his customer on the dating app Grindr
• Ler still faces two charges, which he said he planned to contest 

SINGAPORE — The former head of the Ministry of Health’s National Public Health Unit who was embroiled in a massive leak of confidential data has lost an appeal against his conviction over drug-related charges.

High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang said on Friday (Aug 28) that he found no reason to disagree with a district judge’s decision to convict Ler Teck Siang, 39, of administering methamphetamine to his customer Sim Eng Chee and possessing a syringe used for drug use in 2018.

While Ler appealed against his conviction, he did not do so for the 15-month jail sentence he received in October last year over the drug-related charges.  

He will serve the jail term on top of the two years’ jail he received for helping his ex-partner, American fraudster Mikhy Farrera-Brochez, cheat on a blood test and for giving false information to the authorities.

He had similarly appealed against that conviction and sentence, but the High Court threw out the appeal in March last year. 

For his part, Brochez was sentenced to two years’ jail in the United States last year for extorting and threatening the Singapore Government with the publication of information on patients with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) stolen from the HIV Registry. 

The stolen data, which Brochez leaked online in January last year, affected 14,200 people here.

Ler’s drug charges are unrelated to this data leak.

REHASHED ARGUMENTS 

On Friday, Ler, who appeared from prison via the video-conferencing tool Zoom, made arguments similar to the ones during his trial.

He was again not represented by a lawyer.

He said he should not have been found guilty owing to several factors. 

These include the prosecution misconstruing the meaning of “slamming”, the practice of administering controlled drugs by injection. He also said that Sim, his customer, lied while testifying.

He maintained that he was not providing slamming services, but that Sim was seeing him for “sports and prostatic massages”.

Both men had met on the gay dating application Grindr, where Ler advertised slamming services on his profile.

Ler alleged that Sim lied to officers from the Central Narcotics Bureau when they were nabbed on March 2, 2018 at the Conrad Centennial Hotel. 

Ler argued that Sim implicated him owing to self-preservation, as Sim knew he would be charged with drug trafficking. Sim was jailed for drug consumption and possession.

When they were arrested, the authorities seized several items from Ler’s bag as well as from a hotel room registered under Sim’s name. They included a used syringe, two straws, a white bottle and three packets of drugs. 

The items were later found to be stained with methamphetamine, while the straws were stained with methamphetamine and cocaine.

During the trial, Ler said he wanted to use the bottle and straws to make arts and crafts.

On Friday, he repeated his argument that he had fished the syringe out of a rubbish bin in Brochez’s study room at an apartment that they shared.

As it was a used syringe, Ler argued that it was meant for disposal and not for administering methamphetamine.

When Judge of Appeal Tay asked him why he did not discard it, Ler said that he did not want it to end up in a landfill, where its contents would “spill out” after disintegrating over time.

As for why he kept the syringe for about half a year, Ler said he had forgotten about it because he kept it in a separate compartment in his bag.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Wuan urged the court to dismiss what he described as a  “wholly unmeritorious” appeal.

Ler still faces two other charges, which he had said he wished to contest.

They are for failing to provide a urine sample to the Central Narcotics Bureau on March 2, 2018, and for failing to take reasonable care to protect confidential information on HIV-positive patients under the Official Secrets Act.