Jail for ex-Wheaton College student who secretly filmed women
A former Wheaton College student convicted of secretly filming female classmates in their campus apartment bathroom was sentenced Thursday to 180 days in the DuPage County jail.
Alexander Lim, 25, a citizen of Singapore, apologized to his victims during a nearly four-hour sentencing hearing that started Wednesday and ended Thursday morning. During the hearing, prosecutors played more than 40 snippets of women using the toilet and showering.
Judge John Kinsella also sentenced Lim to 30 months of sex-offender probation after his release. It is expected, however, that Lim will be deported as soon as he completes his jail sentence.
Lim pleaded guilty earlier this year to placing a watch "spy camera" in the bathroom of a college-owned apartment so he could secretly record a group of women he called friends. He then shared several of the files online, labeled with derogatory descriptions of the women. Each video was viewed thousands of times.
"I hope you have some degree of remorse and regret for the complete betrayal of the friendships you had with these ladies for your own deviant interests," Kinsella told Lim as he sentenced him to the longest allowable jail time without sending him to prison. "You caused serious palpable, actual harm to these ladies."
Kinsella, however, said prosecutors made a compelling argument for prison time.
"You're going to go back there and sit in a cell for the maximum time I can give you," Kinsella said. "I wasn't going to say this but I wonder what your sentence would have been in Singapore. I suppose far worse."
Lim, who has no previous criminal record, must serve at least half the sentence before being eligible for parole and his probationary sentence.