Candacie Marshall, Melissa Naughton and Oladara Christian, who were found guilty in August of fraudulently converting in excess of $48 million from Telecom Solutions Guyana Inc, were yesterday each sentenced to four years in jail.
The three women were charged with conspiring together with a person or persons to embezzle in excess of $48 million in credit from Telecom Solutions Inc between June 25, 2008 and November 23, 2009.
On August 31, the trio was found guilty by Magistrate Leron Daly but their sentencing was delayed after their attorneys, Adrian Thompson and Everton Singh-Lammy, requested probation reports be done on their clients.
While the probation reports spoke positively about the women, state prosecutor Ronald Burch-Smith requested that the court not be lenient with them, while arguing that they were criminals and ought to be treated just like a man on the street who would have snatched a chain.
Prior to sentencing, Magistrate Daly stated that she took into consideration the fact that the defendants were adults, that they were in sound mind and understanding and, therefore, mature enough to understand the consequences of their actions.
She further stated that employees ought not to exploit businesses since their employer would have exercised some measure of trust in them, but they took advantage.
During the period the fraud was committed, Naughton and Christian were employed by the company as cashiers who were responsible for selling large amounts of Digicel credit via a computerised system, while Marshall was the person who allegedly solicited customers on various occasions.
It was alleged that both Naughton and Christian had invalidated several transactions that were written off, after which they would revalidate those transactions for sales and take the proceeds for themselves.
Police, during their investigation, discovered that the transactions were sold to persons by Christian, but the funds were never placed into the company’s account.
