Pension thief gets sentence cut by one year
(CNS): A 41-year-old US national who stole almost three hundred thousand dollars from the Chamber of Commerce Pension Fund has had his sentence marginally reduced after a successful appeal. Robert Schultz was given a five year sentence last year following his admission that he stole US$289,660 over a two year period to fund an uncontrollable cocaine habit when he was the fund’s manager and sole employee. Justice Charles Quin had handed down a five year term, which was cut by the Court of Appeal last week to four when the three judges found that the judge had begun his calculations at too high a point as he had not considered the conversion of the currency or inflation.
As the sum was in US dollars and not CI and using guidelines based on case law from a theft which occurred more than fifteen years ago, the appeals court agreed with Ben Tonner, Schultz’s defence attorney, that the judge had used too high a guideline and had not taken inflation into account. The three judge panel re-started the calculations in a lower band, but because of the circumstances of the case they too found few mitigating circumstances and arrived at four years, cutting the jail term by only 20%.
Related articles on CNS:
Addict admits 289k pension fund theft
Category: Crime
Now I really want to know who will pay reimburse the funds stolen to the pensioners. I think it should be the board of directors, management, and the auditors for not catching this! I say pensioners should demand that these people resign from their positions immediately! Particularly his immediate supervisors!
And now for something completely different… I think that not only should the sentence have been reduced, but it should have been suspended completely.
I will garner even more thumbs down, by suggesting that all non-violent offenders should not be incarcerated at all. The risk of getting caught and having consequences is an effective deterrent. The consequences can be community based, while the individual is expected to support themselves while paying back society.
Lengthening custodial sentences is not only ineffective, it is also extremely expensive, effectually a lose-lose proposition. If we focused space and resources on violent offenders, we would have considerably better control and outcomes, at lower cost.
Lastly, the war on drugs is a proven failure. Let’s move on…
How unbelievable…My friend got 20 yrs for consumption with intent to supply..for 1 oz of cacaine….this man takes over a $qtr mil of our pension funds to supply his habbit and get a reduce time of 4 yrs….something is definately wrong with our judiciary System…How unfairly the Caymanian are treated…
XXXX
Like it or not, Bobo, your friend was guilty of a crime that is considered much worse than stealing money – namely trying to get others hooked on cocaine, It's nothing to do with Caymanian or foreigner, just to do with a nasty crime your friend was found guilty of. 1 ounce or 10 ounce. Doesn't matter, he was trying to pass an addiction on to someone else. He needs jail – for a long time.
Oh really, look at the facts, this man stole US$290K and said he used it for his cocaine habit over 15 months. He had to have been a dealer at that rate, otherwise he would have over dosed and would have been dead by now. Let's look at the real picture here. XXXX PLUS we gave him legal aid to defend himself.
10:59, why don't you go and ask your friend how much money he made of selling cocaine and then the figure that was stolen might not seem so high…..pun intended.
It is people like your friend that cause people like this guy to do what he did.
Expats have to pay more than locals.
Aren't drug dealers in the business to make a profit? It seems to follow that if he was a dealer he would need to steal less money to support his habit than if he was simply a user. Somehow your logic seems faulty,but then I am neither a user nor a dealer so what would I know?
Seems like he can affort the best lawyers available!
Not bad.. so he'll be out by next Christma$$$!
I hope some good men will have a privae 'chat' with him after that about their pension money.
While this conviction was a good catch the sentence was TOO Short..
Also, this indicates one aspect that is rarely spoken of by officials – the links between drug abuse and crime + Unemployment!
Or, perhaps that would not be a 'popular' issue to investigate or discuss.
Judge Quinn is a fair man and if he thought 5 years was right, then 5 years is what it should have been. The man stole money, was convicted and was sentenced. Leave the sentence alone and let him enjoy what he rightfully deserved for taking someone else's money. What his lawyer should have done was go and find those he disposed of the money with and try to get it back if he wanted to earn his client time off credits.
Funny, but it seems to me that human rights doesn't apply to victims of crime, only to the criminals who perpetrate it on society.
Now can someone please explain to me why this crime is treated so lightly? This man abused his authority to steal pension payers money and admitted to use this money for his coke habit. For some foolish reason he only got a 5 year sentence and now got reduced by a year for INFLATION?????? Is this truly justice when we are sending 13 year olds to prison for consumption of ganja at longer terms? Come on Cayman we blithe the future of our youth for petty crimes and slap the wrist of this adult for a far worse crime. The justice system needs to be revisited. This is completely unfair. By the way how are those pension contributors being repaid for the money this individual stole? Will they be required to obtain social services because of this theft?
This was an attempt by his lawyer to get more time off below three years so he would not have this kept on his record permanently. But he will fool the system just like others have. He will have some plastic surgery and change his name and come back and we the fools down here will hire him back. He was a drug dealer, plain and simple and having his sentence reduced is a slap to the faces of every pensioner he stole from. We need to outlaw pensions, because clearly the Caymanians are the ones getting screwed from both sides on this instance. Screwed out of their money by those handling the pension by hiring theives to oversee it and then scrwed by the administrators because they aint going to give it back to to them! Pensions is an elaborate ponzi scheme put in place to benefit the administrators, because it certainly ain't to the benefit of the pensioner. Everyone should boycott paying pensions and see how the deal with this.
As a Chamber of Commerce pension fund member, can you tell me what will be done about the missing money? Does this mean that our pension payouts will be reduced? This may seem like an odd question but I would like to know please.
What on Earth have inflation and exchange rates got to do with the theft of more than a quarter of a MILLION dolarrs – whatever the currency. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had stolen 289,660 carrots – it’s a Hell of a lot.. As for inflation…….
And, who is to say, more than fifteen years down the line, that the benchmark set in the referenced case law, was itself totally accurate.
If he had been a native born Caymanian , his sentence would not have been reduced. It is pathetic, a shame and a disgrace when honest decent, hardworking Caymanians of unquestiond integrity apply for jobs that they can easlily hold and be refuised , or not even afforded the manners of a reply, the poistion. But a foreign thief can have his sentence reduced because of some techhnicality and more tahn likely be allowed to reamin on island after serving his term in Northward, living a life of luxury there at the hands of poor honest hardworking Caymanians.
No wondere after working for 21 years my pension was so small, and it was with the same people.