Annie (not her real name) cursorily skimmed through a letter her former husband sent from prison, barely registering his declarations of love and regret.
Once, his words would have reduced her to an emotional mess, reminding her of the life they had built, and the pain of his betrayal.
But now, her eyes are dry and her heart unmoved. If she replies at all, it is usually a few short lines about their four children.
“I don’t love him any more,” she said. “I have let go and moved on.”
This is the story of Annie, the first victim in a shocking case that led to the convictions of seven men, including her former husband.
Four of the men plotted an elaborate and sadistic scheme which involved drugging their own wives and allowing others to rape them.
Annie’s former husband – referred to as “J” in media reports – recruited the most accomplices. He drugged her and found five men to rape her, one of them on their wedding anniversary.
One of these men also invited a seventh man to rape his wife, but the attempt was unsuccessful. This seventh man was sentenced to three years’ jail in 2022.
A gag order has been imposed to protect the identities of the four victims. The names of the seven men are anonymised in public records, as is standard practice when sex offenders are close family members of the victims.
Annie first contacted The Straits Times in January 2024 through her brother-in-law and his wife, Annie’s sister. All of the men’s cases had concluded by then, except for O’s appeal against his conviction and sentence, which was dismissed in February 2025.
Annie wanted her story told and was composed as she recounted her life’s darkest chapter to ST – first in 2024 at a relative’s home, and again in May 2025, this time on camera at ST’s newsroom studio.
The 40-something spoke with a detached calm, as though telling someone else’s story, her lilting voice occasionally punctuated by nervous laughter.
When words failed her, she would glance at her sister or brother-in-law, who accompanied her on both occasions, offering quiet strength and support.
But nearly two hours into the May interview, the pain broke through when she was asked how she felt upon learning the truth.
“I really feel hatred. I really hate him for making me go through this, but there is nothing I can do about it,” she said bitterly, wiping away tears. “I just tell myself that I have to go on.”
Shaky start
Annie’s nightmare began in 2008, when she met J at a karaoke pub. They were both then in their 20s. He was jovial, humorous and charmed her with sweet platitudes.
She became pregnant within months and, despite her reservations, married him. “I told him, ‘I don’t feel secure with you. I have this thought that after marriage, you will have a lot of other women’,” she recalled.
He reassured her: “You are ‘The One’ for me. I have had enough fun, I will be a good husband and father to our children.”
But just two months after the birth of their first child, she discovered he had been checking into hotels several times a month. When confronted, he lied that he was playing poker with his friends, but eventually admitted that he was with a woman, who he claimed only gave him massages and nothing more.
Annie forgave him when he promised to cut off contact with the woman.
“Because I loved him a lot, and I could not bear to let my (child) live with a broken family,” said Annie, who grew up with a single mother and never knew her biological father until she was an adult.
But the same thing happened when she was eight months’ pregnant with their second child. She had marched into a hotel, where J had said he was having drinks with a client at its lounge, only to find there was no such lounge and he was nowhere to be found.
Heartbroken, she, too, strayed briefly in their third year of marriage, a fact she does not hide.
“I didn’t have feelings for him. It was just someone I could vent my frustration to,” she said of the man, O, who contacted her on Skype.
They had a one-off tryst which left her ridden with guilt.
One day, out of the blue, O asked her if she would agree to a threesome with her husband. Disturbed, she cut off contact with him. The affair would later be used by J as a twisted justification for what he did.
The truth, however, was darker. Months before O contacted Annie, he and J had been trading sexual fantasies over Skype, among them the idea of a man finding pleasure in watching his wife sleep with someone else. J not only asked O to contact his wife but also gave him her personal details, such as the name of her school and her favourite drinks.
“Everything was so nicely plotted… I thought that it was totally my fault,” she said.
‘She let the fire burn bigger’
For years, Annie had sensed something was odd about J. He suggested installing a CCTV camera in their bedroom, ostensibly to monitor their children.
Police investigations would later reveal that he shared the camera password with others on the internet, who watched them having sex.
Another time, when they were in bed, she discovered he had called another person to let the other party listen in on their intimate activity.
Furious, she called her mother-in-law, who came to their flat and slapped her son, telling him: “This is your wife, not some prostitute.”
Annie looked up counselling services and urged him to seek help. But when the only option turned out to be group therapy, she hesitated. She feared it might do more harm than good to expose him to others who shared the same disturbing desires.
“I gave up the thought of counselling. We had a heart-to-heart talk, and I asked him, ‘Can you not do all these things?'”
Her family could not comprehend why she repeatedly chose to forgive him.
Shaking her head during one interview, her sister said: “The fire was small. She let the fire burn bigger.”
Annie cut in: “It is not that I let the fire burn bigger. I just felt hopeful… I wanted my children to have both parents around, a happy family.”
She also took comfort in the fact that he was doing well as a safety officer and doted on the children.
So, she kept forgiving J during the course of their marriage, no matter how bad his indiscretions and infidelities got.
Unimaginable betrayal
On New Year’s Day in 2020, Annie’s life imploded.
She returned home from a party to find J asleep and a video still playing on his phone. As she was turning the video off, she had a gut feeling to check his phone.
On his Skype chat with another man, she saw a sexually explicit photo of her husband and another woman, who was blindfolded.
Scrolling further, Annie was horrified to find obscene photos of herself, also blindfolded and unconscious. In the accompanying messages, her husband declared that she belonged to the other man.
She took screenshots and sent the messages to her sister, and J’s sister too.
“I actually felt very blank. I could not imagine that he had done something like that to me,” she said.
She slapped J awake, demanding an explanation. He remained silent. Her family urged her to make a police report but she hesitated, fearing she would lose her husband and be unable to support her children.
J’s mother begged her not to go to the police. When Annie finally said she wanted a divorce, her mother-in-law handed her a lawyer’s name card.
“She actually recommended her lawyer to me,” she said.
Annie also forced J to take her to the home of the man in the chat, referred to as “K” in media reports. At K’s place, she asked the man if he had raped her.
“At first he denied (it). I asked him a few times, ‘Did you have sex with me without me knowing?’ Then, he admitted,” she recounted.
Letting out a chuckle, Annie let on that her sister had the presence of mind to video the exchange as evidence. She eventually decided to file a police report, driven by the fear that her children might end up being J’s victims if he was not arrested.
“I also thought what he did to me was really cruel. Really very cruel,” she said.
Puzzle pieces
On Jan 2, 2020, she walked into a police station with her sister. J and K were arrested the next day.
As investigations progressed, Annie learnt she had been violated by multiple men, not just K. J had not only invited them into the couple’s bedroom and watched as they raped her, but also snapped photos and later relived the assaults with them.
During one chat with K in 2015, J chillingly said that no matter how smart their wives thought they were, they would eventually be outsmarted by their men.
“Bet both of them still thinking they are their husband’s chaste and loyal wife,” he wrote.
Annie could not remember the assaults. But in the aftermath, the puzzle pieces began falling into place. She recalled periods when J would ply her with pills when she said she was unwell with symptoms like a sore throat or cough.
“When I asked, ‘How come I need to take so much medicine?’, he would say, ‘These are what you requested, and they are all good for you,'” said Annie, adding that she had woken up at times feeling groggy or without her underwear.
It turned out he was feeding her Dormicum pills – a prescription-only sedative – bought from a peddler in Geylang. J even tested the drug on himself.
“After I found out that he used this as a way to sedate me, I felt a very deep sense of betrayal,” she said. “I could not imagine somebody that I love so much doing this to me.”
The only “lucky” thing was that she was not awake to endure the assaults, added Annie, who also noted that a persistent yeast infection she had suffered for years quietly disappeared after J was arrested.
While helping the police with their investigations, she realised she had met a few of her assailants before. One had sent her a friend request on Facebook and left flattering comments on the photos she posted. J had also taken her along to have drinks with an older man who made her feel uncomfortable.
‘Forgive him to move on’
Annie’s trauma was debilitating.
She began drinking heavily to cope with the emotional upheaval. She struggled to keep the family afloat working two jobs, while hiding the truth from her children.
It took over a year for her to tell them what happened. Upon hearing the truth, they burst into tears and hugged her. The eldest said of their father: “He can stay inside prison forever. I don’t care.”
In the early days, Annie’s pain was not just directed outward; it turned inward.
“I hated myself for being so blinded by love, by him, and I also hated myself for being so forgiving,” she said. “I felt very dirty. I felt very used. I just felt that there was no meaning for me to exist, actually. Why do I still exist?”
But each time those thoughts surfaced, she clung to one reason. “I have to bring my children up. I cannot just leave them like that. It is not their fault,” she said.
Annie attended J’s first few court mentions, but stopped after that. She testified only against O, who had claimed trial. J and the other four men pleaded guilty.
In mitigation, J claimed his actions were sparked by his “shocking discovery of her affairs”. He blamed the other men for influencing him and produced a psychiatric report which said he had a sex addiction.
The judge rejected his excuses and sentenced him to 29 years in prison and the maximum 24 strokes of the cane permitted by law.
Annie did not attend J’s sentencing. “I felt sad for him that he has to serve (a long sentence), but I also felt glad that all the accused are receiving the punishment they should be receiving,” she said through sniffles.
While she no longer talks to her former in-laws, Annie – whose divorce was finalised in April 2025 – allows her children to visit them because she values family ties.
She has sold her matrimonial home with J and downgraded to a smaller flat. Aside from financial considerations, she wanted to move away to avoid questions from neighbours about J’s whereabouts.
Meanwhile, J continues to haunt her with the e-letters he sends from prison about twice a month.
In one letter, he pleaded with her not to destroy everything they had built together.
“In my heart, I was thinking: Who is the one who destroyed this thing that we have built?” said Annie.
She remembered, with a bittersweet smile, a time when she used to tell him: “I want you to be the person to hold my hand when I am taking my last breath.”
Today, the thought of even touching him is unthinkable.
What she holds on to now is not the past, but the future. She cherishes every moment with her children and wants to watch them grow up happy and safe.
“We have to forgive him so that we can move on,” she said quietly.
Helplines
Mental well-being
- Institute of Mental Health’s Mental Health Helpline: 6389-2222 (24 hours)
- Samaritans of Singapore: 1-767 (24 hours) / 9151-1767 (24 hours CareText via WhatsApp)
- Singapore Association for Mental Health: 1800-283-7019
- Silver Ribbon Singapore: 6386-1928
- Chat, Centre of Excellence for Youth Mental Health: 6493-6500/1
- Women’s Helpline (Aware): 1800-777-5555 (weekdays, 10am to 6pm)
Counselling
- Aware’s Sexual Assault Care Centre: 6779-0282 (weekdays, 10am to 6pm)
- Touchline (Counselling): 1800-377-2252
- Touch Care Line (for caregivers): 6804-6555
- Counselling and Care Centre: 6536-6366
- We Care Community Services: 3165-8017
- Clarity Singapore: 6757-7990
Online resources
My husband arranged for 5 men to rape me. I have to live for my children: Victim in wife-rape ring case
