Fined $13k for bank fraud

MOTHER of one, Anika Moore, was fined $13,000 on Friday after she pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud for using a fake job letter and payslip to try to get a $10,000 loan from Republic Bank in 2005.

Moore, 37, pleaded guilty at the start of her trial in the San Fernando High Court before Justice Hayden St Clair Douglas. Attorney Ainsley Lucky represented her while attorney Trevor Jones prosecuted.

She was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud, two counts of uttering forged documents and two counts of endeavouring to obtain money by false pretences.

Police said on October 12, 2005 Moore went to the banks Chaguanas branch and presented two documents, a job letter and a payslip from the Ministry of Finance Inland Revenue department, stating she was employed there. She gave the documents to a bank employee in her application for a $10,000 loan.

The employee suspected the documents were not authentic and asked Moore to wait while the documents were verified. After a call to the ministry revealed Moore was not employed there, police were called in.

Moore was arrested while still in the bank.

In passing sentence, St Clair Douglas said the mitigating factors in the case were that Moore pleaded guilty at the start of the trial. He said she was an instrument used to carry out the fraud and not the mastermind. He said she did not get any benefit from her actions, although she admitted she would have received some money if the scam had been successful.

He said the mother of one was remorseful and not likely to re-offend. She also assisted the police in their investigation.

St Clair Douglas said with the mitigating factors in mind, a jail term would not be appropriate for Moore. However he said the court is of the view that fraud is a serious offence and has to pass a sentence that would deter others from doing the same thing.

Moore was fined $5,000 or in default spend two years in jail with hard labour for conspiracy to defraud. For the two charges of uttering forged documents, she was fined $2,000 each and ordered to serve six months on each charge if she defaults payment.

She was also fined $2,000 each on the charges of endeavouring to obtain money by false pretences and ordered to serve one year hard labour on each charge in default of payment.