SINGAPORE: A scientist with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) admitted in court on Monday (Jul 5) to committing various obscene acts including exposing himself to three women.
Xie Danpeng, a 31-year-old China national, pleaded guilty to four charges including trespass, sexual exposure and dishonest misappropriation. Another two charges will be considered in sentencing.
The court heard that Xie targeted two women at a condominium in the southern part of Singapore on Apr 12, 2020.
One of them, aged 37, was going home after hanging out some laundry when she saw Xie masturbating in the common area between 8am and 9am. The woman took a video of him.
Xie kept on the obscene act while staring at her. Alarmed, she ran home.
The woman showed her employer the video she had taken and the latter called the police.
At about the same time, the other victim, aged 26, was in her unit when she saw Xie masturbating. Xie made eye contact with her as well, alarming her. The victim called out to her boyfriend, who rushed to the balcony and asked Xie what he was doing.
Xie ran away but the second victim’s boyfriend confronted him and reported the incident to the management of the condominium.
Xie was arrested that same day and released on bail. He was told not to return to the condominium, but he went back on Apr 19, 2020.
After entering via an unlocked door near the rubbish collection area, Xie took a pair of shoes from a rack outside a unit.
Investigations revealed that he also tried to return to the condo on Apr 15, 2020 and the police were called in by the condo’s management.
At about 11am on Jun 12, 2020, Xie went to the room of a 32-year-old woman and lay down completely naked on her bed. The woman saw Xie when she walked in and called the police.
Investigations revealed that Xie had been walking around the unit wearing only transparent underwear in the week before this.
The court also heard that two days before the exposure incidents, Xie rode a mountain bicycle, which did not belong to him, away from where it had been parked outside Alexandra Retail Centre.
Xie’s lawyer Chung Ting Fai asked for a report to assess Xie’s suitability for a mandatory treatment order. He said Xie was undergoing “tremendous stress at work” and was “feeling pressurised over his girlfriend’s desire to relocate to Singapore”.
“Our client decided to release the sexual tension kept up inside of him by masturbating in the vicinity of the premises,” said Mr Chung.
He said his client had told a doctor at the Institute of Mental Health that he experienced “voices within his head that were laughing at him and telling him to take off his pants and masturbate”.
The prosecutor objected to the calling for a mandatory treatment order suitability report, saying that there were no contributory links between Xie’s conditions and the offences.
He was diagnosed with exhibitionistic disorder by IMH in October 2020 and had a history of adjustment disorder with depressed mood during early 2020, with work as a stressor.
The judge agreed to the defence’s request for a report assessing Xie’s suitability for a mandatory treatment order, but stressed that this did not mean he would definitely be given such a sentence.
He will return to court next month.