Finance manager who stole more than $630k from firm sentenced to 66 months’ jail

A finance and human resources manager who misappropriated about $631,000 from a firm selling electronic components was sentenced to 66 months’ jail on June 19.

Ivy Tan Yee Ling, 35, was convicted of four charges of criminal breach of trust by a servant following a trial.

She has appealed against the conviction and sentence.

Tan, who joined Exim & Mfr Enterprise in February 2016, was found guilty of misappropriating two cheques amounting to about $204,000 and $67,600, between April and May 2016.

She did the same with two other cheques worth about $261,000 and $99,000 between February and March 2017.

At the closing of the trial, Deputy Public Prosecutor Yohanes Ng said that it was undisputed that Tan had deposited the four cheques into her personal account and those belonging to two of her friends and her company, Wedding Day.

He added that it was not in question that she received all the money.

DPP Ng said Tan’s version of events, which included a claim of receiving “secret instructions” from Exim’s owner, Mr Ng Sin Kwee, was not credible and should not be believed.

The prosecutor said that her defence was that Mr Ng told her to bank in the four cheques to various beneficiaries, and then to pass the proceeds to him in cash as he wanted to hide the true dividend amount from his wife because he had an alleged relationship with another employee.

DPP Ng said her account requires the court to believe that Mr Ng trusted her enough, when she had just joined the company, to ask her to be an “accomplice to the crime of effectively stealing dividends from his wife” and to “entrust her with several hundreds of thousands of dollars with no written documentation”.

“And as if that was not difficult enough to believe, her account further requires the court to believe that she did all of this for no reward, even after her relationship with (Mr Ng) soured, and right up till her last day of work at the company.

“This account simply beggars belief,” the prosecutor added.

DPP Ng also said Mr Ng’s actions after he was told about Tan’s misappropriation by her successor showed he did not give her any secret instructions.

These included a civil suit that was filed against Tan.

DPP Ng said that while Tan claimed she had returned the full amount to Mr Ng in cash, there is no evidence that she had returned a single cent to Mr Ng or Exim.

The prosecutor asked the court to sentence Tan to between 66 and 70 months’ jail.

Noting that she had previously been convicted of one count of criminal breach of trust in 2012 for which she was fined $3,000, he said there is need for strong deterrence.

Tan was represented by Mr Mohamed Fazal Abd Hamid of IRB Law, who had asked the court for a jail sentence of 58 months.

For each charge of criminal breach of trust by a servant, Tan could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined.

Source: Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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