Eight-month suspended prison sentence for having swindled his ex-employer

She succumbed to the temptation. This is how her lawyer tried to justify his client’s act, who is employed as a secretary-accountant. Indeed, her job involves handling cash at the accounting firm where she was recruited in early 2011. The money is deposited at the firm by its corporate clients so that it can pay turnover taxes (TGCA) on their behalf to the public revenue office. The secretary receives the money, often small amounts, and gives a receipt to the clients. Afterwards, she is supposed to put the money in a banner. Except that one day, she kept the money. Seeing that no one had seen her, she continued to do so regularly. She mainly embezzled money from three Chinese convenience stores, three of the twenty-five companies that she had in her client portfolio. In all, nearly 26,912 euros were stolen during two years. Until the day when the firm director noticed it. In December 2013, wishing to obtain payment receipts for their clients, he went to the public revenue office where he was told that some of their clients were overdue with their turnover taxes. Very quickly, his secretary-accountant was unmasked. And she admitted her crime. The firm estimates the damage at more than 40,000 euros. She was laid off on the same day and then fired two months later.

At her trial, the employee was not very communicative. She justified her act by a need for money; her lifestyle was at that time above her income. In court, she said that she would not have been tempted had clients not paid in cash. She also stated that she intended to stop.

Although she acknowledged having stolen money, she, however, denied the sum of 26,912 euros. She estimates the amount to be nearly 15,000 euros and said she was pressured by her employer who supposedly added up the amount himself. For his part, he estimated the amount to be over 15,000 euros.

The civil party asked the judges for further investigations in order to know if the defendant had bank accounts on the Dutch side in which she could have deposited more money.

The court judgement is consistent with the prosecutor’s requisitions, namely an eight-month suspended prison sentence with a two-year probation including the obligation to reimburse 26,912 euros to the victim and pay him 5,000 euros for the commercial damages suffered  (20,000 euros were requested). The prohibition to exercise an accounting activity was also pronounced.

Since then, the former secretary-accountant works for the Collectivité but does not exercise an accounting activity and must not handle money.