4 years prison for trust thief
(CNS): A 46-year-old woman who stole $437,300 from a company and trust registered with the law firm where she was an employee and trustee has been handed a four year prison sentence and ordered to pay $44,600 compensation. After an enquiry by the court into the remaining assets of Patricia Glasgow, Justice Charles Quin ordered the payment, during a hearing on Tuesday, of justa fraction of the original money she had pilfered over a three year period, as that was all the court could identify as potential assets still owned by Glasgow. Pointing to the major breach of trust, the sustained offending and her lack of remorse, the judge started with five years and gave her a 20% reduction for her belated guilty plea.
At first, the West Bay woman had denied stealing the cash when she was a trustee for Rochester Ltd, an offshore company and trust set up by Bodden Corporate Services Ltd, where Glasgow worked, to assist animal and environmental charities. The three year theft, in which Glasgow made more than 70 fraudulent transaction, was committed between September 2008 and August 2011, when she was made redundant.
When she was arrested, Glasgow claimed the money was a loan as she was friendly with the trust's founder and she had needed it to pay off a man who she claimed was blackmailing her over explicit photos he had of her that he threatened to expose. However, Glasgow was unable to provide the police with any details of the amounts she had paid, how he got the pictures, who he was or any details of the blackmail. She simply said he had returned to Jamaica and then had stopped asking for money.
Having pleaded not guilty last July, Glasgow was set to face trial in June this year but in November she had a change of heart and admitted stealing the money and pleaded guilty to theft, obtaining money transfers by deception and forging documents. Following her guilty pleas, however, Glasgow then sold the family house in which she lived to her brother. After paying back money to the government that she had received as part of the UDP administration’s 'save the mortgage' scheme, as well as her mortgage to the bank and a number of other debts, she paid the remaining $75,000 into her brother’s account but made no effort to pay back the victims of the theft.
The court ordered an enquiry as a result of Glasgow's failure to even offer or try to make any payments, given the funds she had appeared to give to her brother for advance rent and possibly safe keeping.
However, the court found that a large portion of the $75,000 had gone while she was awaiting trial and unemployed and the remaining sum that the court could access was just $44,600, which it ordered should go to the trust. The judge advised the victims that they would have to continue their civil suit if they were to try and get back any more of the outstanding sum. Having spent US$390,000, the court heard that there was no clear evidence of what exactly Glasgow had spent the money on. Her attorney stated that she had used it to supplement her income as a single mother in an expensive jurisdiction
As he handed down the four year sentence, Justice Quin explained that he considered the sum stolen to be significant, placing the crime in the higher bracket when it came to the chief justice’s guidelines. Acknowledging the recent findings by the Court of Appeal that inflation must be taken into consideration when calculating amounts stolen for sentencing purposes, he said there was no expert evidence before him about the rate of inflation impacting the figure.
The court, he added, “could not be expected to engage in a mathematical exercise” to arrive at a precise figure. The judge said that on any view it was a large sum, and together with the extensive breach of trust, the impact that this type of crime has on the whole financial services sector and the “sustained nature of the criminal conduct”, the offence fell into the lower end of the highest bracket, as he pointed to five years being an appropriate sentence for the theft. The judge reduced it by 20% for the late guilty plea and ordered a four year term and a further twelve months to run concurrently for the other two offences of which she was convicted.
Category: Crime
To put this in perspective… the global financial meltdown of '08 was perhaps the biggest heist and transfer of public money into private hands in history. As you know, those responsible were given public money to cover their losses and a firm slap on the wrist as opposed to jail time. They are still free after paying back pennies on the dollar to those who lost pensions, life savings, and homes. And once again it is reported are wallowing in excessive bonuses and 'profits'. In other words, the punishment for this type of crime never fits.
So why don't they put her photo for everyone to see?
Wasn't the trust regularly audited? In what position did she work to have such authority?
There is currently no legal requirement under the Trusts Law to have a Trust structure audited.
I feel bad for the innocent people like her children who have to see these comments. I think like this. No amount of money can buy a good name. Her humiliation alone is a life sentence.
4+1=5 years, and out in 2.5 on good behavior and ready to llive life on
$300,000.00 stashed away in some foreign bank account. This penalty is not a deterant
to the desperate, lazy, cowardly, souless, white collar criminal.
Maybe her former company should sue her for damage to their reputation.
But you are right spend a few years in prison and come out with 300,000 to spend.
Whos next?
What nationality is she?
Does it really matter what nationality she is? The matter before the courts was for being a THIEF not for her NATIONALITY.
Out after 2 years for living the high life through dishonesty and then ripping off those she stole from again by dumping her assets? What a joke. For theft like this from a position of trust coupled with her conduct, a 10 year sentence should be the right starting point.
"Her attorney stated that she had used it to supplement her income as a single mother in an expensive jurisdiction" I am a single parent and I have not stolen or intend to steal any money no matter how much I make so she must have been making a pittance at that place or she had some very expensive habits that no one is talking about. I don't live a lavish lifestyle, I drive an old car and I don't go off island often because I have my priorities in order. i know i have to pay my mortgage, pay my utilities and other bills and keep my children fed, clothed and sheltered. She didn't spend the remainder of the funds to supplement her income to live in an expensive jurisdiction. Four years is nothing compared to when she gets out and then goes to lives somewhere overseas where there is a lower cost of living, where she has stashed the funds. This reminds me of that guy a little while ago who had stolen money and claimed he had used it all on a cocaine habit. Right! He must have been snorting a lot of coke for the amount of money he stole, he also got a light sentence and when he gets out he is going to be smiling because he has the money stashed away in some bank account elsewhere too.
Let me get this straight….. This woman filched $437,000 and only had to pay back $44,600 and will now spend four years in the slammer, where she will be fed and clothed and given medical care at taxpayers' expense. That means she will keep (or has spent) $392,400 of the dough. That's the same as earning $98,100 per year in jail. Pretty good pay!……. and I'm assuming she also got a salary while she was employed.
Now I am not a thief, but if you folks at Rochester Ltd. would like a better deal with a new "trustee", I am available, and I will return $55,000 of every $437,000 I take. That's $10,000+ more than you got dealing with Glasgow and Quin. Please let me know as soon as possible as I am currently unemployed and need a job.
I thought the court system was to make the victim whole. What a disgrace; it makes m sick !… I want to vomit.
Poor chlid,always had a bad taste in men,I hope those folks send some big
boys down to rough up the boyfriend a little,big mouth, I'm sure he enjoyed
most of it anyway!
Four years, out in two. Probably get a job again notwithstanding her criminal record. Not a bad result really for Ms Glasgow I'm sorry to say.
Wow, so you can steal, do a little time and then go back and enjoy your house, car and like the stash you moved somewhere to the side? And then people say stealing doesn't pay…..
In addition to the four years, she should be made to work and pay 50% of everything she makes to repay the stolen money with interest. After all, she spent it and benefited from it, so why shouldn't she have to repay it? That would add to the deterrence factor.
Ultimately she's a bird-brained thief with a brainless cover story – the judge ought to throw another 10 years at her for her ridiculously poor attempt at insulting his intelligence. Sheesh!
She must have some redeeming values. She paid back the 50-year, interest free, UDP save-the-mortgage load didn't she?
Another outsider! Bring in the finger printing system! A lot of outside criminals are entering our islands!
Your last two sentences are entirely correct.
If you believe that then you also believe that pigs fly. She spent it frivolously. Expensive dinners, clothes, buying lunch for the entire office staff, new car , trips overseas, weekend hotel galavanting, taking care of the boy friend etc, etc.
How ya know how she spend it?
So in the private sector you get caught and have to pay the price, the public sector is swept under the carpet, delayed, not investigated, allowed to continue..shurley shome mishtake!!
An outsider? Check the DNA…you'll find a product of these islands
Sorry people this won't fly with me….that's a heckof a lot of money to blow. And no body saw this? Really. She would have to spend an additional $9K a month for 4 years and no one saw this? And it can't be traced?
Was she into drugs? gambling? Something not adding up.
Where did she did she travel and who did she know there? Phone calls who to? Did she visit them?
Next this…company…..fire your accountants…internal and external…NOW!!!
This is GROSS incompetence on all sides….CFO should be fired for sure….can't believe this size of activity flies under radar.
I would also question whether the sale of the house to her brother was at a fair market value. Seems the family is a little too obliging in this process, buying the house from her, how and with what? Finding $75k in your account and allowing her to spend it, how? Repaying the Government fund – with stolen money, how is that legal?
Through which bank account did she pass the funds – if it was just on, or even a few, didn't it strike the bank(s) that this was "unusual activity" in their ongoing compliance monitoring procedures?
Seize her house!
Ha!! she sold it already.
Just one more piece of evidence that the "Save the Mortgage" initiative neds an independent review.
what kind of management going on at Bodden & Bodden, don't they have internal audits and supervisions. How did she get away with this for so long. Haven't they heard about the "four eyes" system? Really slack down there!!
That's the question, 11:34. Internal controls. Amazing how many business hasn't grasped that concept. Even some of the banks.
CNS note: 4+1 = 5 years
CNS: To run concurrently.
CNS – perhaps, for the slower audience, you ought to provide a dictionary link to the word concurrently.
Now that's funny!!!!!
Simply not enough. It seems thievery is rampant among locals in positions of trust and something must be done to hit those caught much harder.
"Locals"? Was the manager of the Pines a local? Was the Solomon Harris accountant a local? Was the Chamber of Commerce thief a local?
Compared to …… the daily court lists available on line? The news reports when you consolidate all offences including shootings and robbery? The prison population?
There is good and bad everywhere, for such a small population you do seem to have an excessive amount of home grown crime.
Correction, thievery is rampany among individuals within this particular industry. Please refrain from making this a local vs expat issue. All misconduct should be tried and prosecuted to the full extent of the law regardless of one's nationality.
To:Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 26/03/2014 – 05:33. You state that "It seems thievery is rampant among locals in positions of trust and something must be done to hit those caught much harder". Surely you intended to say "It seems thievery is rampant among persons employed locally in positions of trust and something must be done to hit those caught much harder." If not then you are either ignorant of the truth or you have chosen to ignore it.Here are a couple of reminders that expats,in positions of trust, have also been found guilty of stealing ,or have been charged with stealing.There is the case of the expat gentleman who was convicted of stealing from the Chamber of Commerce pension Fund;the expat gentleman charged with stealing from the local law firm that employed him;and the expat gentleman alleged to have stolen from UCCI. I could go on ,but I think I have proven my point that locals in position of trust are not the only ones to steal;some expats do the same.
Not just locals my friend. Rotary has had their fair share of expatriate thieves in positions of trust recently. Bigger amounts too in at least 3 cases.
My word, if you were a foreign investor thinking of placing substantial funds with a Cayman financial services provider, this could really catch your attention. Presumably there is no requirement for Professional Indemnity Insurance to protect clients in the event of your firm being responsible for losses due to negligence in the management of client funds.
Looks like the more an individual steals, the more favorable the sentence will be. The message I get is if you plan to steal, go for the kill, you will be out in no time at all. Not sure how this is a deterrent.
exactly!!!! WTF!
I am a qualified, decent and honest Caymanian without a job. Lady, you have just made it harder for my applications to be assessed without reservations by prospective employers. Life can be so unfair and your sentence should have been 40 years. I also sympathize with that poor fictional Jamaican man.