SINGAPORE: A nurse aide was on Thursday (Nov 21) sentenced to two years in jail for cheating his colleagues of almost S$10,000 (US$7,500) to pay off debts.
Yari Rawi, 50, is a repeat offender who was previously jailed for cheating by targeting elderly colleagues in a similar method.
His present offences were carried out while he was already under investigation, and shortly after his release from jail for his earlier crime.
Yari told the court that he reoffended so soon because he was heavily in debt and being chased by illegal moneylenders.
He said that repeated attempts to hold down a job had failed, as his employers would fire him whenever they learnt he had a criminal record.
Yari said this was because his previous conviction was reported in the news, and asked Principal District Judge Toh Han Li if he could prevent publication of this case by the press.
“Sorry, I can’t control the issue of publication because these are open court proceedings,” the judge told him.
Yari pleaded guilty to two charges of cheating, with a third taken into consideration for sentencing.
He met one of his victims, a 68-year-old social worker, while both were working at New Horizon Centre.
Between October 2020 and February 2021, Yari approached her to borrow money, claiming that this was for funeral expenses and an eye operation for family members.
She lent him S$3,800 in total, but when she asked him to return the sum, he made excuses. He later admitted the excuses were false, and that he used the money to pay his loans.
Another victim was a 64-year-old caregiver whom Yari met while working at another organisation.
He told the caregiver that he had a contact in Japan from whom he could buy branded bags at a discount.
The man lent him more than S$4,400 to buy four Maison Goyard bags. After the money was transferred on Jan 5, 2021, Yari said the bags would arrive by the end of the month.
He later told the man that the wrong bags were delivered, and that he had returned them. He avoided subsequent calls from the caregiver.
After repeatedly failing to get his money back, the older man made a police report.
Yari’s third charge involved cheating two women of more than S$1,500 by claiming he could book flights and hotels in Jakarta for them.
Yari also has previous convictions for criminal breach of trust and forgery.
But he told Judge Toh that he had tried his best to change, and was in his final two weeks of a hospital attachment to get his nursing licence.
Defence lawyer Danny Nah said Yari was determined to turn his life around, and had done well and received awards in his nursing course at the Institute of Technical Education.
He asked for 22 months’ imprisonment, while Deputy Public Prosecutor Santhra Aiyyasamy asked for three years and three months to four years and five months in jail.
Judge Toh took issue with the proportionality of the prosecutor’s proposed sentence, noting that Yari received five months’ jail for a similar charge in 2020, but she was now “jumping” to a jail term of more than a year per charge.
In his decision, the judge noted that Yari made full restitution to the victims, but that he should receive a heavier sentence as his previous sentence did not deter him.
Mr Nah then informed the court that Yari was a Ministry of Health bondholder, and needed time to inform the ministry of his conviction. He applied for the jail sentence to be deferred so his client could do this.
Judge Toh allowed Yari to start serving his sentence next January without any increase to his bail of S$15,000.
The punishment for cheating is a jail term of up to 10 years and a fine.
