KUALA LUMPUR: A masseuse was sentenced to a year’s jail by the Sessions Court today after pleading guilty to falsifying a marriage certificate for her and a member of the royalty in February.
Persana Avril Solunda, 43, entered her plea after the charge was read out before judge Suhaila Haron.
She admitted to the offence after the charge was read again to her during mention proceedings.
Persana had previously made a non-guilty plea when she was first charged in June.
Suhaila ordered her to begin serving the sentence from today.
According to the charge, she used a TikTok account under the handle “king.charles.ratu” to create and upload a video containing a doctored image of a false marriage certificate involving a member of the royal family and “Crown Princess Ratu Shana”.
She was judged to have committed the offence on Feb 25 with the intent to harm others.
The post was accessed about 10am on Feb 26 at the Cyber Crime and Multimedia Investigation Division of the federal police Commercial Crime Investigation Department, located at Menara KPJ in Wangsa Maju.
Persana was charged under Section 233(1)(a) of the Communications and Multimedia Act, punishable under Section 233(3), which provides a fine of up to RM500,000 or up to two years in jail, or both, upon conviction.
In mitigation, defence lawyer Datuk Noor Svetlana Noor Nordin pleaded for a lenient sentence for her client, who has a 19-year-old daughter.
“She is remorseful and apologises for her actions. She did not think twice about her actions as she had been under pressure and trauma due to her past marriage,” she said.
She said her client was previously sent for psychiatric evaluation at Hospital Bahagia Ulu Kinta in Perak which confirmed that she was of sound mind and fit to stand trial.
Deputy public prosecutor Izzat Amir Idham asked the court to hand down a proportionate sentence.
“The offence is serious as it touches on the royal institution,” he said.
She was charged in June after she was arrested by the Bukit Aman Classified Crimes Investigation Unit at her workplace in Kota Kinabalu, after an arrest warrant was issued against her for skipping court.
In previous proceedings, the court rejected Persana’s request for a second psychiatric evaluation.
She had claimed that she had not disclosed everything during the initial assessment and that her prescribed medication was ineffective.
After the posting was detected, a profiling analysis was done and data preservation report by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission found the videos in Persana’s TikTok account.
Investigations showed that the posting was defamatory and could affect the reputation of the member of royalty.
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