High Court acquits domestic worker of stealing from elderly employer through bank withdrawals

• Ms Portela Vilma Jimenez was originally convicted of theft and sentenced to one year’s jail
• But she claimed that her employer gave her his bank cards and PIN as compensation for sexual advances
• A High Court judge found inconsistencies in the employer’s evidence

SINGAPORE — A domestic worker was on Friday (Oct 30) cleared of stealing S$8,000 from her elderly employer, after appealing against her conviction and sentence.

Ms Portela Vilma Jimenez had claimed trial to 10 charges of theft, allegedly committed in January and February 2017, and was found guilty earlier this year of all charges after a nine-day trial in the State Courts.

The Filipina, now aged 50, was sentenced to one year in jail.

Through her lawyers — Mr Suang Wijaya and Ms Syazana Yahya from Eugene Thuraisingam LLP, who represented her pro bono through the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme — she appealed to the High Court.

Justice Chua Lee Ming heard the appeal on Friday and accepted it on the same day. 

Ms Jimenez’s acquittal comes just after a similar high-profile case, in which former domestic helper Parti Liyani was found guilty of stealing from her ex-employer, businessman and ex-Changi Airport Group chairman Liew Mun Leong, but was later acquitted by the High Court.

According to his brief written decision, which TODAY obtained from the Supreme Court, Justice Chua found that Ms Jimenez’s conviction was “against the weight of the evidence”.

The employer, Mr Yong Choong Hiong, was 89 years old at the time of the alleged offences. His wife, aged 83 then, had dementia and was wheelchair-bound. Ms Jimenez began working for them in December 2015.

THE TRIAL

Ms Jimenez did not deny making eight ATM withdrawals of S$1,000 each from Mr Yong’s two bank accounts between Jan 13 and Feb 8, 2017. Closed-circuit television footage caught her doing this.

The key contention was whether Mr Yong had consented to the withdrawals and passed her the bank cards.

The prosecution argued that Ms Jimenez had stolen the bank cards from his wallet.

The defence countered that Mr Yong had given her the cards and his PIN as compensation for touching her sexually and attempting to have sex with her.

During the trial, Mr Yong testified that he kept his bank cards in his wallet in his pants throughout the day, except when showering. 

He said he did not share his PIN with anyone, even his children.

But Ms Jimenez testified that he had passed her his cards on several occasions and written down the PIN — which was the same for both cards — for her.

She claimed that while Mr Yong promised her S$500 each time he allegedly touched her, she did not know how to use the ATM and just pressed a button, getting S$1,000 each time.

She said that she returned S$500 to Mr Yong each time.

The defence argued that when Mr Yong’s family had found out about the withdrawals, he lied to them that they were unauthorised and was subsequently forced to lodge a false police report to support his claim.

THE CONVICTION

In convicting Ms Jimenez, District Judge Jasvender Kaur rejected her claim that Mr Yong was paying her for sexual advances, as she found inconsistencies in the helper’s testimony. 

For example, the judge pointed out that Ms Jimenez had a DBS account and bank card of her own, which made it hard to believe that she did not know how to use an ATM.

In her grounds of decision, Judge Kaur noted that while Mr Yong had difficulty hearing questions and recollecting some events, he was “absolutely certain” he had not given Ms Jimenez his bank cards.

She also found that Mr Yong had not delayed reporting the matter to the police.

He testified that he found out about the withdrawals on Feb 2, 2017, when he received his bank statements for the previous month. 

He said he went to a UOB branch to ask about four of the withdrawals, then returned with his son on Feb 21 and showed the bank staff a picture of Ms Jimenez. 

Mr Yong lodged a police report the next day.

THE APPEAL

In overturning Ms Jimenez’s conviction, Justice Chua noted that there was no documentary record of Mr Yong reporting the withdrawals to UOB in early February. 

This meant that he took three weeks to lodge a police report, and this delay supported Ms Jimenez’s case that he consented to all the withdrawals, the High Court judge found.

The prosecution had also failed to make its case on how Ms Jimenez could have possibly accessed Mr Yong’s bank cards and PIN without his consent. 

Justice Chua found that this meant Judge Kaur’s inferences had no evidential basis.

CCTV footage showed Ms Jimenez keying in the PIN twice on the first withdrawal. 

The prosecution argued that this showed she had made an educated guess and got the PIN right the second time, but Justice Chua found “no evidential basis” for this argument. “It is highly unlikely that (Ms Jimenez) would have guessed the correct PIN on the second try,” he said.

He thus acquitted Ms Jimenez after concluding that reasonable doubt had been raised.

In a post about the acquittal on their website, her lawyers said the criminal proceedings have spanned more than three years, during which time she was unable to work and was separated from her family.

The lawyers also thanked the migrant workers’ group Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics for its help.