Man threatened to spread rumour that his brother had AIDS because he stopped paying for the internet

A Hong Kong man has been sentenced to jail after he threatened to leak his brother’s personal information and spread a rumour that he had AIDS, because his older brother stopped paying for his internet service.

And we thought fighting over who rides shotgun was bad!

Eddie Lee, 37, had previously pleaded guilty to four counts of criminal intimidation. 

During sentencing yesterday, Magistrate Debbie Ng said she considered the case to be a family dispute, which had been “blown out of proportion” by Lee’s “selfishness, immaturity, and impulsive nature”, Oriental Daily reports.

However, as Lee previously had no criminal record, and is depended on by his elderly father, Ng sentenced him to four weeks’ imprisonment, suspended for 18 months.

The defendant’s brother, 39-year-old Lee Kam-chung, moved out of the family home in Kwun Tong in September 2014 and cancelled the broadband contract which had been registered in his name, according to HK01. 

In October 2015, Eddie threatened to leak his sibling’s ID number and credit card information online. A background report showed that Kam-chung had also left his child in Eddie’s care, but stopped providing financially for the family after he moved away.

In January, the unemployed 37-year-old threatened that he would force Kam-chung to resign by embarrassing him at his workplace. SCMP reports that he warned Kam-chung that he would “share a bottle of kerosene with him” if he “dared” to return to the family residence.

Two months later, Eddie said he would spread rumours at Kam-chung’s workplace that he had developed AIDS.

Just in case you forgot that Eddie no longer had a working WiFi connection, he apparently threatened to fax the rumour. 

Three days later, the wannabe extortioner was arrested for criminal intimidation. We wonder what he would have threatened to do next if he hadn’t been stopped – perhaps send a letter, sealed in wax, delivered by carrier pigeon?

Eddie has reportedly been unemployed since 2007, and been financially dependent on his father ever since.

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