PUBLISHED ONSeptember 02, 2026 10:56 AMUPDATEDSeptember 06, 2026 9:15 AMBYLaili AbdeenFormer Wah!Banana scriptwriter-actor and TikToker Lev Panfilov was acquitted of all charges on Wednesday (Sept 2) after the Court of Appeal overturned his 2025 conviction.
The 30-year-old Singapore permanent resident was initially sentenced to 11½ years' jail and 12 strokes of the cane in May 2025, after being convicted of two rape charges, a sexual assault charge and one count of outrage of modesty.
Panfilov, who is originally from Russia, was accused of raping and sexually assaulting a woman he had met on Tinder at his condominium unit on Jan 12, 2021.
The woman, who was 30 years old at the time, met with Panfilov in person at a restaurant in Robertson Quay, after matching on the dating app.
She said that she wanted his advice on scriptwriting and agreed to continue working on the script at his home.
The pair later went to Panfilov's condominium unit, where the woman alleged that he raped and sexually assaulted her. Panfilov did not dispute that the sexual acts took place but maintained throughout the proceedings that the encounter was consensual.
Four days later, on Jan 16, 2021, the woman visited a doctor as she was experiencing pain from the alleged assault. The doctor advised her to make a police report.
Around midnight on Jan 18, 2021, the woman told her mother about the incident. Her mother then took her to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital before lodging a police report.
The woman later said she had initially hesitated to go to the police, as the incident had taken place behind closed doors and there were no witnesses.
She also claimed she was discouraged after reading reports about low conviction rates in sexual assault cases.
During the trial, which began in May 2023, High Court judge Pang Khang Chau found the woman to be a detailed, consistent and unusually convincing witness.
Justice Pang also accepted her explanations for the issues raised by the defence and did not find Panfilov to be a credible witness, given the significant inconsistencies between what he said to police officers, what he said in his video-recorded interviews and what he said in court.
On Wednesday (Sept 2), however, the Court of Appeal allowed Panfilov's appeal and acquitted him of all four charges after finding that inconsistencies in the woman's evidence, when viewed collectively, raised reasonable doubt in the prosecution's case.
The court also found that her evidence fell short of the "unusually convincing" standard required to overcome the lack of corroborative evidence.
One inconsistency related to whether the woman had screamed during the alleged rape.
She told a doctor that she had screamed, adding that Panfilov tried to choke her and pressed a pillow over her head to silence her.
This contradicted her testimony in court that she wanted to scream but did not end up doing so.
Another issue concerned a blood-stained pair of underwear produced as evidence to support her account of a violent assault, according to The Straits Times.
Expert witnesses agreed that the only observable injury on the woman could not account for the amount of blood found on the underwear.
The judges also raised doubts over both the source of the blood and whether the underwear produced in court was the same pair she had worn on the night of the alleged assault. The woman had said it remained in her laundry basket for six days before she retrieved it on Jan 18, 2021.
The final issue related to the woman's inability to recall visiting a clinic four days after the alleged rape to ask for a doctor's memo stating her injuries and their probable cause.
According to court findings, she had wanted the memo so she could potentially approach Panfilov's family about the incident.
When the doctor declined to examine her before a formal police report was made, she allegedly asked for records of the consultation to be erased.
The appeal court said it found it difficult to accept her claim that she had no recollection of making that request, The Straits Times reported.
The judges also noted that her claim that the blood-stained underwear remained in her laundry basket was inconsistent with her earlier explanation that she had hesitated to make a police report because she believed there was a lack of evidence.
Panfilov broke into a smile after hearing the verdict and appeared to acknowledge supporters in the public gallery. His girlfriend was among those present in court, The Straits Times reported.
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