Timeline

The incident  took place in SAS ceramics room.  V came home, confused and upset, told me about the incident. 

Singapore was under strict COVID regulations where 1 meter (6 feet) distance was to be maintained at all time.

I wrote to SAS, reporting the incident: “My daughter has informed me that this Wednesday (Mar 3) 2:30-3:00 when she was in the ceramics room alone with Mr. Zul, he had put his arm on her leg and was breathing heavily next to her when he said he was helping her to center the clay. This had made her uncomfortable. She came home upset and reported to me last night.”

Mr Monsor was called "Mr. Zul" in SAS. 

Centering clay doesn't require any physical touch with the student: the instructor sits on his own seat and demonstrate.  

The touch was skin to skin as V was wearing her school uniform and her legs were exposed. 

Nothing was done, and Mr. Monsor was called into a classroom by an Art teacher as a model.  Seeing Mr. Monsor, V was traumatised again, and had to be excused.  SAS started its own investigation, led by two High School principals. 

My husband and I had a meeting with the high school principals who led the investigation.  They confirmed the touch, just as V had described multiple times in her interviews.  They also confirmed that Mr. Monsor had taken "Child safeguard" training in SAS, but didn't want to admit that this incident was "sexual harassment".   We came home and asked V to write down a statement so that facts weren't being twisted.  At home, we timed the touch, and it was 20 seconds because this was how long it took to center the clay.

That night, I sent V's statement to SAS, and asked for a written investigation report, as well as SAS's "Sexual Harassment" definition.

SAS gave us the first investigation report.  It admitted the touch, but wouldn't conclude that this was "Sexual harassment".  It omitted an explanation of "heavy breathing", which had made V very uncomfortable. 

At this point, I had consulted my Google HR team as well as SG Skills hotline.  SG Skills governs private schools in Singapore. Both were very clear that this is sexual harassment, especially when it took place in a school setting, against a minor.  SG Skills told me to file a Police report.  

I wrote to the High School Principal to suspend Mr. Monsor until we finish the investigation.  He refused.

SAS sent us a second investigation report, which had a slight revision of the first. It explains the heavy breathing as "a breathing technique" that Mr. Monsor uses while working on clay.  

V suffered from PTSD: she woke up in the middle of the night, having nightmares, crying “Mommy, I can’t sleep, I remember his hairy arm on my legs”.  This happened over many nights.  

In one of the letters to high school students, High School Principal Ly included a link to the "SAS HR Definition of Sexual Harassment", but this was not sent to parents.  I downloaded the file.  The file shortly disappeared from SAS file server in June, 2021.

Apr 29, 2021, My husband I met with 6 SAS administrators to go through our written counter views to the SAS reports.  During the meeting, SAS Deputy principal confirmed the touch was skin-to-skin, and Monsor heard V’s question “shall I stand?” and Monsor said “no”, and he proceeded to center the clay and pressed his arm on her thigh, for the entire duration of the act.  

At the end of the meeting, my husband asked "is this sexual harassment?" two high school principals wouldn’t answer it, just like they did during April 8th's meeting.  Finally, Mr. Boasberg, SAS Superintendent said, "No".  My husband then asked, "even if for the facts, we take V's version, is it sexual harassment?". Boasberg said, "No, because there was no sexual intent." There was a long silence in the room after Mr. Boasberg gave his answer.

Mr. Boasberg then tried to explain his answer by comparing this incident to a yawning man stretching his arms back and accidentally touching a female passerby's breasts.  This analogy was ridiculous and was adding insult to injury.

The following day, I wrote an email to the 6 SAS administrators documenting the last moment of the meeting, vowing that "I take a strong stance of being an advocate for the young women and girls who had the painful experience of being sexual assaulted or harassed. Yesterday's discussion strengthened my conviction that we will fight the cause to the end.” 

May 1, V filed an "Outrage of Modesty against a minor” against Mr. Monsor at the Woodlands Police station. Case L/20210501/2045.  V was 16 when the incident took place, a minor in Singapore.

We also submitted 2 SAS investigation reports to the SG Police, as they have ascertained facts that Monsor had admitted to.

On May 3, I emailed Mr. Boasberg, asking him to suspend Mr. Monsor as there was an ongoing criminal investigation.  Mr. Boasberg didn't respond to my request and Mr. Monsor continued to work in SAS.

SAS hired a outside lawfirm TSMP to investigate the incident.  We didn't ask for it, and since V had filed a Police report for OM, she didn't want to be interviewed again by some lawyers.  TSMP didn't interview V before writing their report.

SAS reached out to us in early June, saying that the TSMP report was ready but it would require us to sign an NDU (Non Disclosure Undertaking).  We refused.

I launched a petition website advocating for a "Zero Tolerance Policy against Sexual Harassment", where I shared our family's experiences at SAS. To protect the privacy of the individuals involved, I redacted names from SAS files and referred to Mr. Monsor only as 'a TA.' The focus of this matter lies in how schools should handle sexual harassment complaints. Within just two weeks, the petition garnered 250 signatures, many of which came from SAS students and parents. Numerous individuals left comments, with one petitioner highlighting a similar cover-up of a rape case in Denver Public School during Mr. Boasberg's tenure as superintendent.

In response to the public outcry, Mr. Boasberg decided to release the TSMP report to all SAS parents. However, he shared only a truncated version, concealing the two previous SAS investigation reports as well as V's written statement in Annex B. Additionally, TSMP was not provided with SAS's own 'HR Sexual Harassment Definition,' rendering the release nothing more than a clumsy cover-up.

On August 12, 2021, Mr. Zulkifri Bin Mohammed Monsor filed a Protection Against Online Harassment (POHA) lawsuit against me, alleging that my petition website had 'identified and online harassed' him. Up until this point, I had never met Mr. Monsor and was not permitted by SAS to enter the ceramics room where the incident occurred. It was only through this accusation that I learned Mr. Monsor's full name.

At the time, there were over 100 teaching assistants (TAs) at SAS. 

Following a Singapore Court filing (EPO) on August 25, I removed the petition website on August 27, 2021.

In the Outrage of Modesty (OM) investigation, an Investigation Officer was promptly assigned on May 2, 2021. However, Police Officer Hermi couldn't gain access to SAS until May 7, 2021. During the investigation, Monsor, V, and I were interviewed for the case. We provided the two SAS investigation reports as critical evidence to the Police, as there were no other witnesses in the ceramics room when the incident occurred.

On September 9, 2021, when Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Thiagesh interviewed me and V for the case, he informed me that he didn't use the two SAS reports but relied on the Police Officer's investigation. As it has been more than two months since the incident, the 2 SAS reports are the most important secondary evidence to OM investigation. Why didn't he? 

On October 27, 2021, the DPP issued a No-further-action (NFA) decision in the OM case against Mr. Monsor.

Our lawyers advised to do a psychiatric report on V to show the harm from the incident.  V was assessed by two forensic psychologists and she had Adjustment Disorder and PTSD immediately after the incident, and her symptoms were directly resulted from the March incident.  We submitted the psychiatric report to DPP, and received two more NFAs, not even a warning.

At this point, I became suspicious and delved into the statistics provided by the Minister of Law regarding Outrage of Modesty (OM) cases. I realized that only 5% of OM cases received NFAs, 40% received a warning, and approximately 40% were prosecuted.  So what happened in Mr. Monsor's case?

We started the POHA proceedings and started to submit affidavits.  On Dec 8, 2021, after Mr. Monsor received NFA from the OM case, his lawyer offered to settle the POHA case, asking for SGD$20K, to permanently take down the website, and not talk about the case.

I refused, and opted for a trial.

In total, both sides submitted 12 affidavits. To establish that Mr. Monsor was cleared from the Outrage of Modesty (OM) prosecution, his lawyer presented three videos that they claimed depicted the incident on March 3, 2021. It was during this process that I uncovered the extent of Mr. Monsor's and his lawyers' deception during the Police investigation of OM.  (Please find out in here)

I stood trial for five days over a span of 2.5 weeks. During this time, Mr. Monsor, Mr. Boasberg, and I were called to testify and were cross-examined by our respective lawyers.

On the first day of the trial, Mr. Monsor lied under oath, claiming he didn't touch V. His statement was directly contradicted by Mr. Boasberg, who testified on the second day, affirming the validity of the '2 SAS reports' and acknowledging that V's accusations against Mr. Monsor were not 'baseless'.

Despite the support I received from numerous SAS parents and Google colleagues who wished to join the trial, they were unable to do so because the trial was deemed 'private'.

During my testimony, I highlighted the falsehoods in Mr. Monsor's statements and the inconsistencies between Monsor's and Boasberg's testimonies. You can find more details about the lies presented in the POHA trial here.

It's important to note that all evidence, including affidavits and testimonies, becomes part of the public record when presented in court, thereby setting a legal precedent. The evidence included the '2 SAS Investigation Reports'.

After 5 months, District Judge Diana Ho ruled that my Petition site -- which didn't name Mr. Monsor, called him a TA, and redacted all files -- was in violation of POHA.  She ruled that I need to pay Mr. Monsor SGD$10,000 "compensation/damages for the injury to feelings. " (??!!)

This ruling, if uncontested, will effectively set a legal precedent of "HOW TO MOLEST A CHILD, AND GET PAID!"  in Singapore.

I have returned to the US.  

Given that this case involves a crime committed on campus by a Singaporean teacher against an American minor, I am notifying the US Embassy in Singapore, the Minister of Law of Singapore, SG Skills, and relevant authorities in Singapore through this publication.

It is crucial to hold Mr. Monsor and SAS leadership accountable for their actions.  And it's important to have transparency and accountability in the judicial system because that's the foundation of any legal society.