‘Ying Kai’ gets 7.5 years’ prison
The Criminal Court yesterday sentenced Monta Yokrattanakan, better known as “Ying Kai”, to seven years and six months in jail for a violation of Section 112 of the Criminal Code, or the lese majeste law.
According to an indictment submitted by the prosecution, the suspect claimed she was a khunying, a title bestowed by His Majesty the King, and used it to seek undue favour and benefits, which caused damage to the higher institution.
Monta was taken from the Central Women’s Correctional Institution, where she had been detained, to the court.
The court was supposed to begin a witness hearing in the case yesterday, though Monta, who had previously pleaded not guilty, confessed to the lese majeste charge.
The court then sentenced her to 15 years in jail in violation of Section 112, but reduced the sentence to seven years and six months due to her confession.
Monta became one of the most controversial fraud and lese majeste suspects in 2016 after one of her many victims came out to seek help from a volunteer lawyer who exposed Monta’s alleged long history of criminal acts.
On June 22 last year, lawyer Songkan Atchariyasap took a 19-year-old first-year engineering student, identified only as Praphawan or Nong Koi, to lodge a complaint with the Crime Suppression Division, accusing Monta of filing a false theft charge against the teenager and her parents.
The youth’s complaint made headlines and led to probes into the Monta’s background.
At that time, she was widely known as Ying Kai, a nickname leading the public to misunderstand that she had the royally conferred khunying title. Nong Koi was later proven innocent in the theft case.
As the media dug deeper, they found several other alleged victims who said they were former employees of Monta who had also been mistreated. Some had been sent to jail for thefts they did not commit.
Police also found Monta had illegally cited the higher institution for her own interests, which is deemed a violation of Section 112 of the Criminal Code.