LEXINGTON, Kentucky: Mikhy Farrera Brochez, the man convicted of leaking the personal details of thousands of people on Singapore’s HIV registry, was on Friday (Sep 27) sentenced to two years’ jail.
Brochez was found guilty in a US court in June 2019 of several charges, including transmitting threats for extortion and illegally transferring the identification of another person.
He will be placed on supervised release for three years after he finishes his time in prison.
Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) announced on Jan 28 that Brochez had leaked the names and addresses of 5,400 HIV-positive Singaporeans and 8,800 foreigners.
READ: Mikhy Brochez found guilty of trying to extort Singapore government in HIV registry leak trial
Brochez lived in Singapore for 10 years from 2008 and worked as a polytechnic lecturer. He admitted to using degrees that he fabricated during his time here.
The American citizen was jailed in Singapore in 2016 for lying about his HIV-positive status to gaining an employment pass. After he was released, he returned to the US before MOH’s announcement in January.
During the trial in the US in June 2019, FBI agents and others said Brochez smuggled the database out of Singapore partly by sending it to his mother. He also kept it on seven devices including phones, a laptop and external hard drives, and uploaded it online to a Google drive.
From the US, Brochez emailed links to media and government officials, witnesses said.
He threatened to disclose the information more widely if Singapore opened an investigation into his case, did not close the registry and did not release his partner, Singaporean doctor Ler Teck Siang.
Ler Teck Siang at the Supreme Court on Mar 11, 2019. (Photo: Gaya Chandramohan)
Brochez has also been ordered by a US court to “immediately surrender” to Singapore’s authorities the data obtained from the HIV registry and all other confidential information.
He was also told to “permanently delete” all information obtained from MOH and the Singapore Prisons Service from all devices, storage media or websites.
