Former Power 98 DJ and YouTuber Dee Kosh was sentenced to 32 weeks' jail on 5 August 2022 after pleading guilty to sexual offences involving teenage boys, including offering cash for sexual services. The case began in August 2020 when several young men accused him of sexual harassment on social media, triggering one of Singapore's biggest influencer scandals.
Darryl Ian Koshy, then 33, pleaded guilty in May 2022 to attempting to procure an indecent act from a young person and communicating with a minor to obtain sexual services. Court documents showed he solicited paid sex from four teenage boys between February 2017 and August 2020. In one instance, he approached a 16-year-old outside Takashimaya at Orchard Road in February 2017, offering him $400 and eventually raising the offer to $2,000 in exchange for sexual acts. Between March and June 2018, he approached a 15-year-old boy with similar propositions. Both boys rejected his advances.
Kosh also admitted to secretly filming himself having sex with another man, then aged between 23 and 25, without consent. Charges of making and possessing obscene films were taken into consideration during sentencing. Deputy Public Prosecutor Lim Ying Min called Kosh a seasoned criminal skilled at avoiding detection, describing his offences as highly premeditated, and sought five to eight months' jail. District Judge Jasvender Kaur noted Kosh had brushed off one teenager who repeatedly said he was underaged, and had moved conversations to Telegram and Snapchat to conceal his actions.
The scandal first erupted on 15 August 2020, when an Instagram user accused Koshy of sexually harassing him under the guise of recruiting him for his channel. At least five others came forward with similar accusations, and six police reports were filed. Koshy initially denied the allegations before conceding there was some truth to them. The fallout was swift: production company Night Owl Cinematics suspended all projects involving him, sponsors Huawei and Lenovo ended their deals, and he went on leave from Power 98FM, where he had hosted the evening slot since leaving Mediacorp's 987FM in 2014.
Kosh was charged on 19 August 2021 with sexual exploitation of a young person and making obscene films. He was released from jail in March 2023 after serving about seven months. In 2023, he posted a lengthy video attempting to clear his name and claiming a psychiatrist found no signs of paedophilic disorder, but one of his victims disputed his account, saying he never received an apology. The case remains a cautionary tale about power imbalances between online celebrities and their young followers.