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SINGAPORE: To threaten his wife, a man threw a two-month-old kitten to the ground until it bled and then dumped it down a garbage dump on the 11th floor.
A month later, he stole a teenager’s phone while holding a karambit knife on a bus.
Rico Wong Wei Wei, 30, was sentenced on Thursday (October 22) to three years, six months and 10 weeks in prison and six strokes of the baton for these crimes.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, violation of a personal protection order against his wife by killing the kitten, and one count of animal cruelty. Three other charges were considered.
The court heard that Wong’s wife obtained a personal protection order against him in January 2018, after a fight. According to the order, Wong was prevented from using violence against her.
On May 4 of last year, at approximately 3 a.m., Wong had a fight with his wife over financial issues. He returned to his room upset and angry, and a two-month-old kitten he had picked up from a block in Woodlands came over to him.
He lost his temper and threw the kitten against the closet in the living room and his head began to bleed.
He picked up the kitten and asked his wife to look at him, saying it was “because of you.” He threw the kitten to the ground in front of his wife, saying, “If I can do this, you don’t care.”
His wife shuddered with fear when she saw what her husband had done to the kitten, who was bleeding on the floor. The kitten stopped moving and Wong put it in the kitchen basket.
His wife stayed awake the rest of the night out of fear, then took their children to their mother’s home.
Later, Wong threw the bag containing the kitten down the garbage chute on the 11th floor. The animal is now presumed dead.
Separately, he stole his S $ 1,000 phone from a 17-year-old on June 25, 2019, along with S $ 500 in cash. Wong had boarded a bus from the Sembawang MRT station and gone upstairs where the victim was sitting.
Wong carefully concealed a curved karambit knife in his shirt for the victim to see without drawing the attention of other passengers. Then he sat next to the teenager, showed him his knife and asked for his phone number.
The teenager eventually handed over his phone and S $ 500 in cash, then made a police report.
IT IS RECALCITRATING: FISCAL
The prosecutor requested a sentence of four years and ten weeks in prison and six strokes of the cane. The crime of robbery with a deadly weapon only carries a mandatory minimum penalty of two years in prison and six strokes of the cane.
Assistant District Attorney Daniel Ling said that Wong is a recalcitrant criminal with many previous convictions including robbery and robbery.
He also said the harsh sentences are in line with policies to develop stronger measures against cruelty to animals, calling the mistreatment of the kitten “unjustifiable, egregious and unjustified.”
Not only did Wong make the kitten’s head bleed, but he also threw it on the ground so that its blood splashed onto the ground, before throwing it down the garbage dump.
While the kitten was not found, it is likely that it died when it was thrown down the chute. He hadn’t hurt Wong, who “took his anger out on the kitten over a dispute with his wife.”
The crime against his wife was also carried out “in flagrant disregard” of the personal protection order filed against her, Ling said.
Defense attorney Jonathan Wong said his client was “deeply sorry” and “painfully aware” of what the sentence will mean for him, his wife and their two children.
He said his wife is “committed to supporting him during this difficult period,” and said the animal cruelty and arguments with his wife were consistent with a “difficult period” that Wong had been going through.
“He is committed to doing everything he can to reshape his future, with his wife and two young children as the main, if not the only, goal he has for the future,” the attorney said.
