CITY MAGISTRATE Leron Daly on Tuesday jailed three women who were found guilty of fraudulently converting in excess of $48M from Telecom Solutions (Guyana).The women who were each sentenced to four years’ imprisonment were: Melissa Naughton, 38, of Robert Street, Better Hope, ECD; Candacie Marshall, 31, of North Ruimveldt, Georgetown; and Oladara Christian, 32, of Shell Road, Kitty, Georgetown.

The charges stated that between June 25, 2008 and November 23, 2009, they conspired together with other persons to embezzle in excess of $48M in credit from Telecom Solutions Inc. The trio had initially pleaded not guilty and a trial had commenced.

Naughton and Christian were employed as cashiers and they were responsible for selling large amounts of Digicel credit via a computerised system. Marshall was the person who allegedly, from time to time, solicited customers.

The two cashiers had invalidated several transactions which were written off, after which they would revalidate those transactions and sell them to persons and receive the proceeds for themselves.

Police, during their investigation, discovered that the transactions (air time) were sold to persons by the number three accused, but the money was never placed into the company’s account.

On August 31, 2016, the three were found guilty of the offense by Magistrate Daly, after it was found that the prosecution had, beyond reasonable doubt, proven its case against them.

Following a probation report the state prosecutor Ronald Burch-Smith told the court that the defendants were knowledgeable of the penalty they would have to face for the offences they committed, since they were well educated and responsible for the offences they had committed.

Burch-Smith refereed to the trio as white collar criminals, saying that they should be punished the same way as a man who snatched a chain. He suggested that the court send a strong message to others, and not because they were mothers they should not be punished for their actions.

Magistrate Daly considered the fact that they were all adults and of sound mind and understanding, and therefore mature enough to understand the consequences of their actions before handing down the sentence.