S'porean woman jailed 19 months for extorting over S$70,000 from lover under pretext of abortion

She had also threatened to reveal the affair to the victim's wife.

Matthias Ang | May 24, 2023, 04:33 PM

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A woman has been sentenced to 19 months' imprisonment after she admitted to extorting over S$70,000 from her lover by claiming that she needed the money for an abortion.

Met on Tinder in 2018

According to court documents seen by Mothership, 35-year-old Nur Hidayah became acquainted with her 39-year-old victim on the dating app Tinder in early 2018.

Both of them are married.

They met multiple times and had unprotected sexual intercourse in September 2018.

In October 2018, Hidayah sent her victim a picture of a pregnancy test kit that showed a positive test result and told him that she was pregnant with his child.

Both of them agreed that she would go for an abortion and the victim would pay for the associated costs.

Asked for money on 32 occasions from her victim

Hidayah also told her victim that she would go for the abortion at Thomson Medical Hospital, and claimed afterwards that she needed to undergo follow-up medical treatments.

In total, from October 2018 to March 2019, Hidayah asked him for money on 32 occasions, with the total amount of money transferred coming up to S$71,968.95.

She did so under the pretext that such money was required for medical treatment and medical procedures from hospitals.

However, unknown to him, Hidayah never sought treatment at Thomson Medical, or any other medical facility in Singapore.

Hidayah admitted that she spent some of the money on flights, hotel accommodation, food and a trip to Melbourne.

Bank statements further revealed that she also spent some of the money at retail outlets such as NTUC FairPrice, Sephora and Uniqlo, and on online platforms such as Foodpanda, Honestbee, Grab, and Spotify.

Threatened to reveal the affair to the victim's wife

Hidayah also threatened to reveal their affair to the victim's wife on another four occasions during the same period, if he did not transfer the money to her.

This resulted in him transferring an additional S$14,032 to Hidayah.

In total, he transferred about S$86,000 to her.

In addition, on Mar. 27, 2019, Hidayah used her husband's email address to send an email to her victim, in which she made a threat that something would happen to his family if he did not transfer S$25,000.

The victim believed that the threat had been sent by her husband.

Subsequently on Apr. 15, 2019, Hidayah told her victim that she would inform family members about his affair if he did not transfer S$455.

Two days later on Apr. 17, her victim went to Orchard Neighbourhood Police Centre to report a case of extortion.

Hidayah then made a restitution of S$5,000 in either May or June 2019 to the victim.

No other restitution has been made.

Court documents also stated that investigations were unable to determine whether the accused was indeed pregnant with the victim's child.

Charged on one count of extortion with six others taken into consideration

Hidayah was eventually charged on one count of extortion pertaining to the S$71,968.65, with six other charges taken into consideration.

Hidayah's lawyer called for a jail term of 14 to 16 months, and highlighted that she had admitted to her crime and that it was her first time committing an offence, Shin Min Daily News reported.

Meanwhile, the prosecution highlighted in its sentencing submissions that a sentence of 20 months was justified in light of the amount of money involved in the seven charges and the fact that she had only made a restitution of S$5,000.

The prosecution also said that the sentence of 20 months already took into consideration the mitigatory value of the accused's plea of guilt.

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