Mother of Teen Who Faces Caning Hopes for Reprieve, Feels ‘Betrayed’ : Asia: Randy Chan insists her son is innocent. Her ‘biggest mistake’ was keeping quiet about it.

SINGAPORE — As in those melodramatic prison movies of the 1930s, Randy Chan hovers close to a telephone, hoping against hope that she will receive the call informing her that her son, Michael P. Fay, has miraculously won a reprieve.

The phone rings almost constantly in the Chans’ comfortable condominium here. But it is not the Singapore government calling.

The calls--from everywhere from Dayton, Ohio, to New Delhi--are mostly reporters phoning to discuss the interest stirred up after Fay, 18, was sentenced to a flogging for vandalism. He was one of five foreign teen-agers charged with spray-painting cars, throwing eggs and possessing stolen property.

“It’s been a puzzle from day one,” Chan, a St. Louis native, said in an interview. “I think they decided to make an example of not just Michael but this group. The Singaporeans are trying to make a point that Western crime is rampant and ‘Look what happens if you do this here.’ ”

The Fay case has become an anomaly of the day, a media “feeding frenzy” fueled in large measure, according to opinion polls, by widespread anger with the crime rate in the United States. Whatever the cause, a crime so minor that had it been committed in the United States it would hardly merit a paragraph in a local newspaper has become the subject of editorials, talk shows and furious debate.

“People are very frustrated,” Chan added. “It’s difficult to tell the whole story in a limited amount of time. Unfortunately, a lot of people are looking at it as a severe spanking. I don’t think most people know what is involved.”

By now, most newspapers have carried graphic descriptions of the punishment to which Fay has been sentenced: six strokes of a half-inch rattan cane, moistened in water to prevent it from splitting and wielded by a hefty prison officer. According to Singapore newspaper accounts, the caning flays the buttocks, often sends prisoners into shock and leaves permanent scarring.

The severity of the sentence prompted President Clinton to describe the punishment as extreme; he has written to President Ong Teng Cheong in support of Fay’s clemency appeal, his last chance to escape the cane. Ong is expected to give his formal reply in the next day or two, but the government has left no doubt that the sentence will be carried out.

Although her son pleaded guilty to the charges, Chan insisted that Michael is innocent of vandalism and that he was compelled to sign a confession by police after nine days of questioning and mistreatment last October. The Singapore police have vehemently denied abusing him.

Still, she said, the family was led to believe that a guilty plea would result in a short jail sentence without caning, and they took what they assumed to be the easy option.

“I didn’t think we were going to be betrayed by anybody, and we were,” she said.

She said it was “one of the greatest mistakes I ever made” that she remained silent after her son’s arrest and mistreatment, but she had been warned not to make the Singapore authorities lose face or they would be hard on her son.

Fay was charged with two counts of vandalism, which carry a mandatory caning sentence in Singapore. According to research by the State Department, the vandalism laws have never before been used in cases involving private property. The Singapore government insists that Fay has not been singled out for special treatment.

Chan returned to the United States after the sentencing and went on the talk-show circuit to drum up support for her son. She became an overnight celebrity.

Chan, who separated from Michael’s father in 1983, moved to Singapore three years ago with her current husband, Marco Chan, an executive with Federal Express, the U.S. courier company. After visiting the couple during his sophomore year, Michael decided to finish high school in Singapore.

Michael was never a distinguished student, she acknowledged, because of what was diagnosed as attention deficit disorder, a neurological ailment that can cause bright youngsters to be impulsive and have trouble adapting to the discipline of classrooms.

Chan said that after Michael was sentenced to be caned, “the stress was getting unbearable,” and she and her husband placed him in a hospital. His psychiatrist expressed concern about suicidal tendencies.

Government-controlled Singapore newspapers have been gleefully reporting expressions of support for the Singapore government, especially from the United States.

“They are not going to get me down. They are not going to get Michael down either,” Chan said.

She said that after Michael serves his sentence, the family will leave Singapore.

“It’s not going to be over when it’s over,” Chan said. “I never want to see this happen again. I’m not going to forget what they did.”