A 42-year-old accountant will spend the weekend in prison after appearing in Port-of-Spain Magistrates Court yesterday evening charged with defrauding her employer of more than $1.5 million. Joanne Gobin, of Upper Bournes Road, St James, was denied bail when she appeared before Magistrate Christine Charles in the First Court on 515 fraud and larceny charges.
Gobin, an employee of SMJ Limited, sat patiently in the prisoner enclosure of the court for close to three hours as Charles read each charge individually to her. The company, based at the Fernandes Industrial Estate, Eastern Main Road, Laventille, operates an employment outsourcing service for supermarkets.
Half the charges were for allegedly stealing the money in tranches ranging from $500 to $15,000, while the rest were for making fraudulent entries in the company’s accounting records. The charges carry maximum sentences of ten years and five years in prison, respectively. Gobin is accused of registering fake staff into her company’s payroll database and of withdrawing their corresponding salaries from the company’s account.
The offences are alleged to have taken place from January 2011 until the discrepancies were discovered by the company and reported to the Fraud Squad last year. After Charles completed the tedious process, which was punctuated by an occasional rest break, court prosecutor Sgt Callistas Charles (no relation) immediately objected to bail.
Charles pointed to the fact that her criminal tracing was not available for yesterday’s court appearance, as well as the serious nature of the charges and the substantial sum she was accused of stealing. In response Gobin’s lawyer, Criston J Williams, accused police of engaging in delaying tactics since, he claimed, the process could have been sped up as his client was in police custody for the entire week. Despite acknowledging Williams’s complaint, Charles denied the bail application.
“Because of the number of matters I would like to see the tracing to satisfy my mind,” Charles said. The magistrate adjourned the case to Monday when the tracing is expected to be ready for her to reconsider the bail application.