Man jailed 4 weeks for exposing himself twice at Aljunied laundromat

SINGAPORE — A 54-year-old man who exposed himself at a laundromat on two occasions, shortly before the ongoing Covid-19 circuit-breaker measures kicked in, was jailed four weeks on Tuesday (April 28).

Cheong Yong Shen pleaded guilty in a district court to two counts of committing an obscene act in public on March 29 and April 4. 

Another similar charge was taken into consideration for sentencing.

He appeared in court from prison, where he has been in remand, through video-conferencing platform Zoom.

The court heard that on the first occasion at about 12.30am, he went to DIY Laundry at Block 119, Aljunied Avenue 2. It was empty at the time. 

After taking off his shirt while standing under the fan, he pulled down his shorts and underwear and began stroking his genitals.

He claimed that he did that as the weather was hot and he felt the need to “scratch” the itch at his crotch. 

He stroked himself for about a minute before pulling his shorts and underwear back up.

The director of DIY Laundry saw what Cheong had done after reviewing closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage. He filed a police report the next day. 

Court documents did not state why or when he reviewed the footage.

On the second occasion, Cheong went back to the laundromat at about 2am and repeated his acts again. Once more, there was no one there at the time. 

The laundromat director discovered what Cheong did again after viewing CCTV footage.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Melina Chew revealed Cheong’s criminal history dating back to 1992, mostly for theft. Most recently in February, he was jailed six weeks for theft.

The prosecutor sought the sentence imposed, saying that in 2015 and 2019, some charges of appearing nude in a public place were taken into consideration when he was sentenced for other offences. She did not elaborate on this.

Cheong, who did not have a lawyer, asked for leniency and said that he had been taken to the Institute of Mental Health for two weeks.

For each charge of committing an obscene act in public, he could have been jailed up to three months, fined, or both.