Fraudster ordered to repay victim or face prison

A woman found guilty of defrauding a man out of around €140,000 has been setenced to two years imprisonment suspended for four years and ordered to repay the money within six months

A 49-year-old woman has been handed a suspended sentence for defrauding a man out of around Lm60,000 (around €140,000).

Grace Gatt was accused of defrauding Gozo resident John Attard between 2004 and 2005.

Attard was employed with the Department of Education in Gozo, and had first made contact with Gatt when he engaged her as a debt collector.

At around this time, the court noted, a dispute arose between the victim and another man who worked worked with him, and also had an interest in the same debtor. 

Gatt convinced Attard that his colleague was going to take some form of retaliatory action, but offered to solve this problem by intervening through the minister, as she knew people close to the minister, against payment. The court was told how a certain Lourdes Castillo would pick up the cash for the accused, amounting to around Lm60,000

The court also observed that Attard had got friendly with one of Castillo's female friends and had sent her inappropriate mobile phone messages. Attard explained that once the accused and Castillo got to know about these messages they blackmailed him for Lm20,000, threatening to report him to the police if not paid.

Castillo, the court noted, had admitted to acting on the instructions of the accused.

The accused was found not guilty of trading in influence, but the court found her guilty of fraud. She was cleared of threatening Attard as the charges were time-barred.

Magistrate Doreen Clarke sentenced Gatt to two years imprisonment suspended for four years, also giving her six months to repay the victim.