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Man fined for forging employer’s cheques, cashes in $15K

The building that houses the High Court in Road Town, Tortola.

A West End man was fined $3,000 and given a suspended sentence after he obtained roughly $15,000 from his employer through forgery.

Derrick Penn pleaded guilty to eight counts of forgery and eight counts of obtaining property (money) on a forged document when he appeared before Justice Ann Marie Smith recently.

He was fined $3,000 for the first count of forgery and given a six-month suspended sentence on the remaining seven. Justice Smith suspended the sentence for two years. That effectively means Penn will only serve six months in prison if he commits another crime in the next two years.

As for the eight counts of obtaining property on a forged document charge, Penn was slapped with a total six-year prison sentence which the judge suspended for two years.

All his sentences are to run concurrently (alongside each other) if his suspended sentences activate and he is committed to prison.

In the meantime, the complainant was compensated in full, the court heard.

What the court heard happened

The court heard that Penn was hired by a heavy equipment company and among his responsibilities back in 2014 was to conduct banking transactions on behalf of his employer.

Prosecutors said he forged eight cheques by increasing the amounts on them over the course of a few months.

After some time, the bank noticed a few inconsistencies in the transactions and alerted his employer. Police later became involved and Penn was charged.

During a police interview, the court heard that Penn admitted that he committed the offences in 2014 to clear some personal expenses.

Attorney-at-law Michael Maduro represented the offender.

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7 Comments

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  1. wize up says:

    in the political world no one stands before the court(its amazing how the justice system functions)

    Like 3
    Dislike 2
  2. marley says:

    “i think it was fair”

    Like 2
    Dislike 7
  3. ? says:

    So that mean that I can commit this same crime and get a slap on my wrist

    Like 10
  4. crimes pays says:

    Crime pays if caught just hand back the bit they know about and you’re well ahead

    • Billfargo says:

      A whole lot of people only means of survival depends on crime, if there were no criminals then you would not need a Judicial System, A Police Department, A Prison, all of the people that work in the prison, the people who supply food and clothing, and I could go on and on so a whole lot of people are very happy that s**t happens!That is why there is a whole lot of Lawyers, Bail Bondsmen, If people stop doing s**t wrong a lot of people will will be walking around with one finger up in their but, and the other scratching out the hair on their head if they have any………….

      Like 1
      Dislike 1
  5. ridiculous says:

    this is setting a bad exampple for future thieves .

  6. Billfargo says:

    Not bad at all! The Bible says: The meek shall inherit the earth, so you have to start somewhere……….

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