In the same month, Chen Jiahao, a Singaporean PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was threatened with legal action for accusing A*Star and Philip Yeo of "bribing universities for taking in PhD students" under the moniker AcidFlask on his blog caustic.soda. Chen went on to accuse A*Star of "giving out gobs of honey to universities who will sign back-door agreements for taking in scholars without going through the formal application procedure." Philip Yeo and A*Star responded with threat of legal action, stating that the statements made in AcidFlask's blog would have been understood to mean that A*Star had acted corruptly in its dealings with universities. The statements also cast serious aspersions on A*Star's scholars to the effect that they were not admitted to their universities on merit but only because their universities were bribed by A*Star to do so. A*Star demanded a public apology from Chen and that the offending and defamatory postings in AcidFlask's 3 March 2005 blog be deleted. Chen chose to shut down his entire blog-site. All posts were removed voluntarily, and replaced with an unreserved apology to "A*STAR, its chairman Mr. Philip Yeo, and its executive officers for the distress and embarrassment" caused. The incidents upset several members of the local blogging community for his statements. In February 2007, Yeo, in the comments of another blog, revealed the exact posts that were considered defamatory.