Former CEO of YouTube channel Night Owl Cinematics (NOC) Sylvia Chan made big waves in 2021 when a slew of accusations poured out against her. From being a toxic and abusive boss, to alleged embezzlement and prostitution, Sylvia Chan’s character (and reputation) was eviscerated.
Sylvia Chan understandably disappeared from the spotlight shortly after the NOC saga and being ‘cancelled’, with her final update being that she was going to be a life coach. But, as it turns out, an investigation into her allegations had been happening behind the scenes and three years after the incident, Sylvia is finally doing a tell-all on her new podcast, “Dirty Messy Free”.
Speaking to her co-host Daniel Lim, Sylvia Chan shared that the mess had sparked a 12-month criminal investigation into her time as the co-founder of the now-defunct Night Owl Cinematics. The police officer had, at the time, informed her the entire floor was working on her case. “It’s not that you have big cases,” he told her. “We have about 100 over open cases against you, ma’am.” And, they were required to close each and every case.
“This is scary because it’s not one guy, it’s a roomful is a whole floor full of policemen trying to find something so they can put me behind bars,” she shared. But for Sylvia, the scariest accusation for her to work through was embezzlement, which is a huge crime in Singapore. “Most people don’t know but I don’t do the operations, I don’t do the accounts,” she said. “It’s very scary for me to fight against a case of embezzlement because I had no prior visuals to the accounts of the company.”
In addition to having to dig through ten years of documents in her two-floor office for papers she hadn’t seen before, she also had to buy old bank statements, which she shared were “bloody expensive” costing her about S$2-4K per statement. But, these were necessary as the police would reportedly ask her about large sums that went out which she couldn’t remember the reason for. “It’s scary because you’re like, S$12K, it could be anything in the company,” Sylvia said.
When asked if she had ever doubted her thinking that she didn’t embezzle funds, Sylvia only claimed that her mistake was leaving it to a group of people. “I really should have put in more effort and at least ask for the right to see these accounts, and keep myself updated but I (didn’t),” she confessed. “I was completely not involved. That was my mistake.”
Sylvia also declined getting legal help as she was struggling to trust anyone back then. “The only thing closest to a lawyer that we have was our company retainer. That company retainer wasn’t even somebody that I know really well and it was somebody that’s hired by my ex-partner,” she added. But, said retainer had been professional enough to urge her to buy as many bank statements as she could and gave her the motivation to sift through the many documents acquired.
While the embezzlement allegations were bad, the prostitution allegation by a close friend however had made Sylvia Chan feel she “probably really did something wrong“. As the case was detailed and colourful and taken very seriously by Singapore, it had opened a huge investigation against her. “That was one of the most difficult investigations,” she recalled.
Despite claiming she was able to laugh about it now, Sylvia recalled the pressure of going through each line of their Whatapp messages and being questioned on it. “I think many times, I actually wanted to break down,” she said, sharing she had been asked about innocuous messages regarding parties and meet ups and the explanation of “we were friends” not being good enough.
As Daniel succinctly put it: “It’s like seemingly innocent, normal, everyday, common things can be misinterpreted in another way, in light of that charge.” But, Sylvia attributed allowing a talent to pull out from their plans at the last minute as the detail that had saved her. She had been incredulous about it as she felt it was a small issue, yet the police told her “Well, this proved that they had free will to come and leave,” and she wholeheartedly agreed that it showed no coercion.
Although she managed to deal with both the embezzlement and prostitution allegations, Sylvia Chan shared that the hundred cases against her had been overwhelming and exhausting as it had been a relentless and emotionally charged affair. It even had her seesawing between whether she would be fine, or have her life ruined.
“One (part of me insisted), if you really didn’t do anything wrong, please, please, please trust in yourself, and there was this voice that kept saying, the truth will protect you,” she said. “But when you are there, no. You can feel the blood drain through your fingers when he asks a question. You’re like: no, I’m f*cked, I’m f*cked.”
The long investigation also made her break down a few times. “I actually begged the police at one point, I was like: “Please just save me. I really don’t know what to do, like I’m in this deep shit that I really don’t know what’s going on. It really wasn’t me, save me.” And he was like, “Ma’am, we’ll do our best.” I guess that was the best answer anybody could ever give,” she shared.
Still, the embezzlement and prostitution allegation had hurt Sylvia the most as it involved people who, in her head, “knew the truth and gave the police a case that was completely fabricated“. “I guess the resentment towards me was enough,” she opined. Sylvia pointed out that it would have taken a lot of effort to fabricate evidence to look a certain way for the embezzlement allegation. “It pained me because that person was my ex-husband,” she admitted.
“It was somebody (who) was meant to take care of me for the rest of my life. It was somebody that, you know, we took a vow, in sickness and in health. And that was the painful part,” Sylvia said. “You really pinned this on me. You know full well you know I didn’t do any of this and it is very hard for me to even fight for this and yet you did it. To put such a scary crime on me that could really possibly get me to jail, that was so painful.”
The prostitution allegations on the other hand, had hurt as they came from her group of girlfriends. She shared that it showed her what their friendship meant to them and it devastated her. “(These were) people that I really spent all my waking hours being with, working for (and) spending my life (with) these people. So, these two cases were just heartbreaking for me and insanely scary,” she shared.
The nightmare came to an end 12 months later when the police called her in and told her they had made a final decision. The same officer who had been leading the investigation on her case had been stoic when they met, however Sylvia deemed him “a funny guy”. “He’s like “okay”, then he gave a really long sigh and he was like, “I’m done with your investigation. I would like to tell you one thing,” she recalled.
Rather than giving her a verbal verdict, he took another long sigh, and told her: “Sylvia, find better friends.” Upon realising she was innocent of all charges, Sylvia was relieved and grateful. The officer told her that he had actually spoken to everyone involved in the case, as per procedure, to cross reference their statements and verify them. As such, Sylvia believes he likely might be the only one who knows the whole story.
However, aside from ensuring those who leveled charges against her declared their final statement as “It wasn’t true“, the police would have no consequences for them. Sylvia then apologised for the case as it had taken up time and resources for over twelve months.
Well, from a legal standpoint, the NOC saga has apparently come to a complete close and Sylvia Chan has been declared “innocent of all charges”. So far, former NOC talents are staying well away from the mess, while those directly involved in the allegations are staying mum.
Sylvia Chan and Daniel Lim have since promised more doses of honesty from Sylvia in their upcoming “Dirty Messy Free” episodes. For now, she’s simply happy to be able to break her silence about the embezzlement and prostitution allegations against her.
Watch the episode here:
Source: YouTube
