An Indian-origin police officer in Singapore has been sentenced to two years in jail for seeking sexual favors from women under investigation. Mahendran Selvarajoo, staff sergeant with the Singapore Police Force, pleaded guilty to the charges, including to two other offences under the Computer Misuse Act for copying data and sexually explicit videos on his own devices.
Selvarajoo's sentencing comes after more than a year-long investigation, following his arrest on May 2019. He would lie to the arrested women and would seek sexual favors from them on the pretext of helping them in avoiding a jail term. Besides, there are several other charges against the corrupt officer.
Officer Not Gentleman
As investigating officer, Selvarajoo, 32, contacted a woman linked to a case involving shoplifting but then he lied to her that her company had contacted the police about the investigation. He told the woman that he could help her avoid further investigation and a possible jail term and asked for sexual favors. The woman complied believing that it would save her from both an investigation and also from not losing her job.
In another incident, Selvarajoo exploited another woman for help in investigations and took explicit videos from her laptop under the guise of investigations, the Today newspaper reported. Both the women later complained resulting in the arrest of Selvarajoo by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau on May 1 last year.
A Different Kind of Corruption
Selvarajoo was on the radar of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau for quite some time as he was bypassing his area of work and getting engaged in corrupt practices including asking for sexual favors from different woman under investigation. Court documents state that Selvarajoo's duties were to carry out commercial crime investigations that entailed interviewing witnesses, among other things.
He used to take opportunity of these interview sessions to lie to the women and ask for sexual acts in return of helping them. In fact, he was also warned by his senior that one of the cases was no longer with him but he didn't follow the orders. Instead, he went to a woman's home to get her signatures on an amended police statement that had new paragraphs inserted to highlight factors in her favor.
Selvarajoo pleaded guilty to four counts, including two for corruption in the form of seeking sexual favors from women under investigation. He faced a jail term of up to five years or a fine of $72,703 (S$ 100,000) for each corruption charge.
