An American man who leaked confidential details of thousands of HIV-positive people in Singapore, most of them foreigners, has been jailed in the US for two years.
Mikhy Farrera Brochez was convicted in June by a court in Kentucky for trying to extort the Singaporan government using the stolen data.
The 34-year-old had obtained the data from his partner, a senior Singaporean doctor who also helped Brochez conceal his own HIV-positive status to get a work permit for the city-state.
Confidential information — including the names and addresses of 14,200 people diagnosed with HIV — was dumped online.
The leak caused anxiety among those with HIV, who have long complained of facing prejudice in socially conservative Singapore.
Brochez was sentenced on Friday to 24 months in federal prison and three years of probabtion after his release, the US Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Kentucky said in a statement.
“The defendant’s conduct was serious and significant, affecting thousands of people across the world,” US Attorney Robert Duncan Jr said.
The data included information on more than 50 US citizens, the statement said.
In 2016, Brochez was jailed in Singapore for lying about his HIV status, drug-related offenses and fraud.
He was deported last year and then news emerged of the data leak, prompting his arrest in the US.
Trial testimony showed that Brochez e-mailed the data to his mother in Kentucky and retrieved the information upon his return.
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