No jail or conviction for fraud charges over $5,000
Astor Legal last week appeared on behalf of a client who was facing serious fraud charges totalling over $5,000.
Our client was an employee at a retail business. Their role involved having access to the company’s finances and bank accounts.
Over the course of 4 months, our client was accused of systematically transferring funds into her own bank account and labelling them as payments to suppliers. This is ordinarily taken very seriously as it is evidence of planning and sophistication in the form of an offender covering their tracks.
Further, the length of time over which these offences took place meant that we could not make any submissions that it was a one-off incident or an aberration.
Eventually her offending was detected by the employer. They conducted an interview with her where she confessed and made full admissions.
Ultimately she faced 7 fraud charges in NSW under the Crimes Act 1900.
Thanks to our meticulous analysis of the brief of evidence, we were able to have some of these charges withdrawn and others ‘rolled up’ so that she only pleaded guilty to a single offence.
We then began preparing her subjective case which included a psychologist report as well as evidence of numerous character references as to the impact a conviction would have on her career as she was a prospective law student.
This – in combination with the persuasive advocacy of our Liverpool criminal lawyers – ultimately resulted in our client avoiding a conviction – something that is extremely rare. This was all the more exceptional as fruad charges over $5,000 usually result in a criminal conviction.
She was sentenced to a condition release order for 2 years and ordered to repay the amount she had stolen.
Our client was overjoyed with the result as she is able to continue her legal career.