Ex-civil servant facing jail time for $30K theft
(CNS): Trisha Marissa Jackson (39), a former facilities manager with the government who recently pleaded guilty to stealing around $30,000 from the public purse over a near five-year period while she worked as a civil servant, will be going to jail, the court warned on Monday. Following a sentencing hearing, Magistrate Valdis Foldats told Jackson that she would be receiving a custodial sentence but he needed time to consider the length of time. Jackson, who is the mother of a young daughter, was bailed until 27 August, when the decision will be delivered.
The court had heard that Jackson’s offending crossed the custody threshold for a number of reasons, not least because of the sustained period of stealing but also because it was a breach of trust and she had stolen from the public coffers. Crown Consel Toyin Salako also argued that this type of offending undermines the wider economy and the integrity of the financial sector, which contributes a significant part of government revenue.
Jackson began stealing in 2011, the same year she began working in the facilities department. Over five years she collected almost $19,000 in rent payments from a mother and toddler group who used the South Sound Community centre, giving the woman who went to her office to pay her directly forged receipts that she did not enter into the system.
Then in 2013 she began another course of stealing by purchasing MacBooks and iPads on the government’s account with Kirk Office using false purchase orders and invoices. But in order not to be detected, she raised false invoices for engineering work that never actually happened by a telecom service arm of the company. By paying what appeared on government books to be invoices for real work by real people, she was able to divert the money to Kirk’s to cover the more than $11,000 spent on the electronics over several months.
It was not until January 2017, some six months after Jackson had resigned from the civil service, when the representative from the mother and toddler group went to the government to make the annual rent payment to use the community centre that the alarm was raised. It was soon realised that no one knew about the cash that was being paid to cover the rent and as far as government was concerned, no payments had ever been made.
Fortunately the mother and toddler group representative had retained all the receipts given to her by Jackson demonstrating she had made the payments. But it then came to light that the receipts were forged and the investigation began, which also exposed the invoice scam that Jackson had concocted to cover up the purchase of iPads and Mac computers.
Although Jackson pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity, she has not made any offer regarding compensation. Christer Brady, her defence attorney, told the court that while she wished she could make an offer, she was not in a financial position to repay the money, nor could she explain what had happened to the computers, which have never been recovered. Brady said his client had come clean, had no previous convictions and was very remorseful about her offending, as he asked the court for mercy.
No details were released publicly about Jackson’s circumstances other than the fact she has one daughter, and there was no indication of the motive for the theft.
cant do the time….pues dont do the crime!????
Better put customs at Jackson Point Terminal!
Someone shoulda told her she isn’t high enough up the ladder to have it swept under the rug!
Who is in charge of overseeing civil servants ? 5 years and no oversight ? wtf
You must be new; we just got our Govts first set of draft financials and an “adverse opinion” was hailed a success merely because a draft was produced for all departments.
Please do not generalise about oversight of all civil servants.
There are several departments where there is a lot of oversight and internal controls in place.
She, like others, have disgraced the civil service and now makes everyone look at all civil servants suspiciously.
The department she worked in, she was a one-woman show, which is why there was no oversight, that is the fault of the Head of that department and the chief financial officer for that Ministry for having no internal controls or oversight.
Why is there always mentioning of whether they have “small” children or not. It really is irrelevant and seemingly an attempt to gain some sympathy for the criminal. People who commit crimes whilst being a parent obviously don’t think about the consequences to their children, so why should society? Lock her up for the full length of time…….
They mention small children to gain sympathy as long as it is a women.
When men are in similar circumstances there is no need to mention children.
Yeah lol except that they do mention it.
By nature aren’t all children small?
3.55pm Plenty men here commit crime, plenty men here produce children, but exteremely few men here look after them.
quite sophisticated for a first time offence
not a first time offender! when she worked at Butterfieldbank she ran circles around staff, and was dismissed before she hung them all.
She had “no clue” about ipads and computers, but has the bare face cheek of trying to say she has “come clean”. Lock her up until she says what scumbag she used to fence them. Saying that, with that evidence a Caymanian jury might have acquitted her. Seen worse from them.
Why people do this and think they going get away ?
Like at the end of the day some way or another it will come to light.
so whats up with the I.T department that cannot pick up on this.
…for years!
I have respect for all women , but not dishonest women like her , she should be locked up for a very long long time and treated like a real prisoner , then she will learn to be honest.
So you don’t have respect for all women. You have respect for all women that are not dishonest.
Seem to be more dishonest Christian Caymanian women in court fir theft nowadays than drug dealers; might be the cost of living per chance Alden?
Five years of stealing. Five years of covering her tracks with this fraud. Five years of spending the Governments money. Pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity is what happens when the evidence is overwhelming, not because she is a good person. Being remorseful is no substitute for being an honest and hard working employee.
9.33am remember pleading guilty gets her 25% off her sentence.
It is sad but how many people on this Island can truthfully say they have never taken something that belonged to someone else? It not have been $30,000 but sick leave when you’re not sick, the rheem of paper, the paper towel, the post its pads, etc just think about it. Stealing is stealing regardless what it is.
Give us ur bank information! U clearly don’t have a prblm wit a lump sum of money being stolen from u! Or, it cud b that one could never know nothing of what one has never had
Pathetic apologist. It is this mentality that means local juries let the obviously guilty walk free.
What exactly is your point? Are you condoning these action?
Clearly you all have missed the point I was making so I’ll leave it alone. All the thumbs down, maybe from those guilty of taking things but not yet been caught. Lol Btw I do not condone this kind of behaviour.
Can you please hand in your Elector ID before you go back to prep 1 or church and learn thou shall not steal.
One daughter…or two? Is she a mother, or did she just give birth? They are two completely different things. Throw that custodial chatter out…onto the next determining factor for sentencing, please…
caymanians always get the shit end part of stick…how many other foreign women stole….and nothing said…it sad!???????? but it is still wrong to steal…period….
Oh please… don’t pin nationality to this incident. Crime is crime!
9:02am , I suppose we never learned of leading by example. That’s what I don’t see today , I mean good examples.
Maybe paying it back; showing remorse; doing the courses; and a host of other actions might help you in court; especially if you go to court having completed or admitted prior to a trial you know you are going to be found guilty of might help? Nope; string it out for mentions as long as possible until they set your trial date and then in said trial date plead guilty; say you found the Lord and pray you don’t want to lose custody of your kids.Then Muppets like you try to justify llltheir actions by comparing it to an expatiate who’s done the same things like the courts are racist or discriminatory to locals? A thief is a thief. A thief who denies they are wrong whilst raping the system for as long as possible (which we pay for) until they realise they stuck.in a corner and cant get out thereby forcing their admissions does not give a f**k about anybody but themselves; yet you defend that? People like you are our Country’s problem because you vote twats to lead us; defend and promote f**kery committed by your Countrymen then turn around and blame expats. Shut the f**k up.
Live within your means. PERIOD.
Or don’t do drugs…?
But I love drugs.
Man where is “LOL” button.
No clue what happened to the macs and Ipads? Seriously? Of course she won’t turn in her buyer(s). I’m sure she didn’t just give them away.
Pull up those social media pages of hers, you’ll see where it went… L O L
find my iphone?
Don’t Macs and Ipads have gps tracking built in? Has anyone else noticed that the timeline matches Joeys apple spending spree aswell? Did we ever recover those 300 Iphones? Where’s the Apple store in Rockhole or Dog City?
Try looking at those civil servants that have outside businesses and use Gov trucks to facilitate them. There are so many examples of fraud to choose from in the CS, from theft of property, use of fuel to sick leave, that this trial is meaningless.
No previous convictions??
Was she not also caught stealing from Scotia some years ago?
No convictions after 7yrs wipes your record unless you committee murderer etc.
Another let down. I thought this only happened in the private sector. A Zero tolerance of corruption is paying dividends in both the private and public sector.
I read every day of employees in the private sector being caught for stealing and false accounting.
6.33am Please inform us where you read every day of theft in the private sector. This is by no means the first case of theft in the Civil Service and what is significant is that this woman was stealing for six years without her employers realising it, and was only discovered six months after she resigned thanks to a member of the private sector who provided irrefutable evidence of this woman’s prolonged dishonesty.
10:46; Where are you living?
Remember the theft and Deliotte, Cayman security centre etc and the list goes on. These private sector criminals stole thousands over many years..
The key word in the matter is : ex civil servant”. She was not put on required leave for 2 years.
5.39pm You cite 2 examples, every day means 365 cases a year – where are YOU living?. She was only “ex” because she resigned as soon as she was found out.
White expats get it over with as quickly as possible whereas locals deny everything until its too late and our courts force the issue or law hence the difference in sentences. Pretty simple to differentiate.
Good and lost now teedee lol!
Better have that last celebration at Mango Tree on Thursday Night!
Her nationality is?
Doesn’t matter, she stole from the Government. Prosecute and jail her sorry ass.
As I do nit hear the throw them out brigade.
Send her back to Honduras!
Honduran, since you continually ask! LOL!
This ain’t her first rodeo.
I have no sympathy for those who destroy the credibility of others. Should have startef locking them up a throwing away the from long time ago. .
Why give bail? She’s going to get more than 2 weeks, right? Why risk her absconding?